Load-Carrying Capacity of Composite Precast Concrete Sandwich Panels with Diagonal Fiber-Reinforced-Polymer Bar Connectors

PCI Journal | July–August 2017 The use of precast concrete sandwich panels has increased significantly in the past few years due to their superior thermal and acoustic insulation properties. They are composed of two reinforced concrete layers (wythes) separated by a layer of rigid foam insulation. Unlike traditional noncomposite panels that rely only on the interior wythe to resist the load, composite sandwich panels rely on the composite action between the wythes, which can be achieved by using shear connectors that are mainly made from nonmetallic, diagonal fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) materials. FRP connectors are preferred by many manufacturers over traditional steel connectors because of their excellent thermal insulation properties and their corrosion resistance. The result of such a combination of materials is an energy-efficient sandwich panel that has a thinner inner wythe than a noncomposite wall, which can be used in many more applications than its counterpart noncomposite wall.