Majid Salimi - Structural Eng. Group, Civil Eng. Dept., Tehran South Branch of the Islamic Azad Univ., Tehran, Iran
Hassan Abbasi - Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Tehran South Branch of the Islamic Azad Univ., Tehran, Iran
Nooshin Ghorbani Amirabad - Ph.D. Candidate at Structural Eng. Group, Civil Eng. Dept., Shahrood Univ. of Technology, Shahrood, Iran

One of the ways to improve the performance of structures against earthquake is using the sandwich panels to create a light-weight structures. Sandwich construction, characterised by two relatively thin and stiff faces separated by a relatively thick and lightweight core, presents high potential as a lightweight structural system. In this study, a structural sandwich panel including of one layer as a core and two layers in top and bottom of panel was investigated. In all of the nine specimens the material of central layer is Polyurethane (PUR) but the material of two other layers vary in three types, GFRF, Concrete, and CFRP. Furthermore, the geometries dimensions of sandwich panel in all of the models are constant but the thickness of central layer of panel vary in three values 100mm, 200mm, and 300mm. All of the specimens first, were modeled as a solid, 3D, and deformable element with considering tie interaction, next, they were analyzed in powerful Finite Element (FE) software once under monotonic lateral displacement and other under a cyclic displacement- time pattern. Results have been shown the sandwich panel made with CFRP layer as skin is more capable in which dissipating energy, stiffness and strength comparing with GFRP, and sandwich panel made with GFRP layer is better than sandwich panel with concrete layer in all of these components.

Light-weight structures, Sandwich panels, GFRP, CFRP, PUR material, Cyclic behavior