Development of a prototype fiber Reinforced Polymer - Concrete Filled wall panel

This paper reports the development of an innovative, prototype Fiber-Reinforced Polymer-Concrete Filled (FRP-CF) sandwich panel with significantly higher strength in both in- and out-of-plane directions, intended to be used for wall construction. The FRP-CF wall panels consist of two components; pre-manufactured FRP sandwich shell with two facesheets separated by a core, and concrete inside spaces between the core and facesheets. The FRP shell is designed to be erected on site with minimum construction time and concrete placed once erected and braced. Two types of tests were conducted: axial compression test to study the wall under gravity load and out-of-plane bending test to study the wall under lateral wind load or soil pressure. All wall panels were tested until failure to study the strength and failure mode. The results are compared to a reference reinforced concrete wall to illustrate the advantages of the FRP-CF wall, which showed considerable strength and stiffness increases.