Numerical Simulation of Thermo–Mechanical Response of Textile Reinforced Concrete Sandwich Panels

Abstract

The sandwich panels are used as different types
of structural systems for load bearing and non
load bearing construction. Textile reinforced
concrete (TRC) is a novel construction material
consisting of a cementitious binder and an
alkali-resistant textile reinforcement which can
yield a better environmental and structural
performance. Generally, the sandwich panel
includes lighter core material and stiffer skin
material. The core material is selected in such a
way that it provides thermal comfort to the
whole system. In the present study, TRC
sandwich panels are used to improve the
structural and thermal performances by
combining TRC with various core materials
such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) and
gypsum board. This leads to a lightweight and
slim structure that could potentially provide
high structural and thermal performances. TRC
sandwich panels are an alternative to
conventional load-bearing brick masonry panel
construction.
TRC sandwich panels are
compared with that of conventional double
brick masonry panels for the performance
under thermo-mechanical loading conditions.
Using realistic temperatures that prevail in
India is used as an input data and the effect of
temperature variation is investigated on the
mechanical behaviour of TRC sandwich panel
and brick masonry panel using finite element
analysis. For all temperatures, TRC sandwich
panel shows minimum strain compared to the
masonry panel. The heat transfer results in
lesser temperature for the inside face of the
TRC sandwich panels than that of masonry
panel.