FERNANDES, PEDRO1; GOMES, M. GLÓRIA 2; MORET RODRIGUES, ANTÓNIO 3

1) MSc Student, ICIST, DECivil, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, pmofernandes@me.com

2) Assistant Professor, ICIST, DECivil, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, mgloria@civil.ist.utl.pt

3) Associate Professor, ICIST, DECivil, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, ahr@civil.ist.utl.pt

This work describes and analyses the thermal behaviour of sandwich panels made of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) with four different types of cores: 1) polypropylene (PP) honeycombs; 2) balsa wood; 3) polyethylene terephthalate foam (PET); and 4) rigid polyurethane foam (PUR). For this purpose, an experimental campaign was carried our in order to evaluate the thermal behaviour of such materials, depending on temperature and moisture content. This study revealed that materials suffer a linear increase of their thermal conductivity as the temperature grows, and an exponential increase of their thermal conductivity as the moisture content grows. However, GFRP’s thermal conductivity, which proved to be waterproof, is not affected by moisture content. Based on winter temperatures, the total heat loss and the linear transmittance of the panels’ junctions were obtained using the THERM software. The results showed, from the thermal point of view, that depending on demands, different combinations of materials and thickness could be used as walls and floors. From this study, it can also be concluded that linear transmittance of the panels’ junctions is negligible for the sandwich panels’ thermal design.

Keywords: GFRP sandwich panels, thermal behaviour, experimental tests, temperature and moisture content influence, prediction models, thermal bridges