Flexural behavior of sandwich panels of polymer mortar reinforced with GFRP

A polymer mortar sandwich panel (PMSP) was developed in this study. The core was made with a polymer mortar whose compressive strength was about 840 kgf/cm(2), and both facings were made with a glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP). Mechanical tests showed that the strain energies and the ductility indices of PMSP increased 16-340 times and 2-8 times, respectively, as the thickness of facings increased from 1.2 to 3.0 mm with the fixed core thickness of 12-36 mm. The energies and the indices tended to decrease as the core thickness increased regardless of the thickness of facings. A set of basic data for the structural analysis could be provided by investigating the correlations, within the scope of this research, between the resisting moment and the thicknesses of core and facings.