A FRP-aluminium composite curtain wall panel, consisting of exterior aluminium plate, fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates, foam core and interior gypsum board, was proposed by a research group in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to achieve high strength and stiffness, efficient energy saving, good fire resistance as well as great sustainability for modern curtain wall systems. To optimize the thermal performance of the panel and reduce energy consumption to the greatest extent, a phase change material (PCM) layer was also considered by the researchers.

In this study, a series of large-scale structural experiments were conducted to experimentally investigate the flexural properties of the panel under a uniformly distributed load. Two typical loading direct...[ Read more ]

A FRP-aluminium composite curtain wall panel, consisting of exterior aluminium plate, fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates, foam core and interior gypsum board, was proposed by a research group in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to achieve high strength and stiffness, efficient energy saving, good fire resistance as well as great sustainability for modern curtain wall systems. To optimize the thermal performance of the panel and reduce energy consumption to the greatest extent, a phase change material (PCM) layer was also considered by the researchers.

In this study, a series of large-scale structural experiments were conducted to experimentally investigate the flexural properties of the panel under a uniformly distributed load. Two typical loading directions, windward loading, with the exterior aluminium cladding taking a uniformly distributed load, and leeward loading, with the interior gypsum board taking a uniformly distributed load were adopted to investigate the effect of loading direction on the flexural properties of the panel. Three groups of specimens with different core thickness and composition were tested under the above loading cases to investigate the influence of the core thickness as well as the PCM layer on the flexural properties of the composite curtain wall panels.

From the results of large-scale testing, it was found that with a good combination of different layers of materials, the composite panels achieved excellent flexural performance for the two loading conditions. What is more, it can be seen from the test results that as the cross section of the panel was asymmetric, the panel had different flexural properties under serviceability condition and flexural properties beyond serviceability condition under different loading directions, and the loading direction had different impacts on the flexural properties of the panels with and without the PCM layer. The test results also show that, for both loading directions, with the increase of core thickness, the flexural properties of the panel were improved significantly, meaning that increasing the core thickness is a very efficient way to improve the flexural properties of the panels. Besides, it is also clear from the test result that the addition of the PCM layer limited the effect on the flexural properties of the panel under and beyond the serviceability conditions, but reduced the serviceability strength of the panels by a big margin.