Sandwich Panels as Building Envelope under In‐Plane Deformation: Experimental Program and Monotonic / Cyclic Response

Strong earthquake loads can cause significant damage to buildings, but even moderate earthquakes with higher return periods are socially relevant as they may cause both infrastructure and economic failures. In an ongoing German nationally funded research project, the behavior of facade elements in lightweight metal construction under in‐plane deformation is currently being investigated with the aim to assess the response and the energy dissipation capacity in the case of seismic events. As past research results indicate the contribution of wall and roof elements to the stiffening of buildings, with the possible consequence of increased earthquake loads due to the natural frequency change, a novel approach for increased resilience of structures with building envelopes in lightweight metal construction may be developed. On the basis of a series of experimental tests, under monotonic and cyclic loading, the effects of in‐plane deformation were studied separately from external influences such as wind and thermal loads. This paper presents: (i) a brief state of the art; (ii) a description of the research framework; (iii) the experimental program; (iv) the specimen configuration, test set‐up, loading protocol and instrumentation; (v) the response under monotonic and cyclic loading; (vi) the main conclusions, as well as the ongoing and future research activities.