An Analysis of Continuous Sandwich Panels with Profiled Faces

Structural sandwich panels made of two thin steel facings that are bonded to a thick mineral wool core are often used as roofing material. This paper explores an application of numerical simulations in the investigation of structural behaviour of long span, continuous roof sandwich panels with profiled faces. Because of the required higher load-bearing capacity and strict deflection limitations, roof sandwich panels usually have one of the cover faces strongly profiled. A finite element analysis and an experimental study of a long span sandwich panel (with an inner strongly profiled and a flat outer face) in two-span configuration with transverse loading were conducted with a special attention given to the failure modes and bearing capacity prediction. The results obtained from the experiment confirmed the finite element analysis results.