An Equivalent Homogeneous Model for FRP Sandwich Bridge Deck Panels with Sinusoidal Cores

Fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) sandwich panels with sinusoidal cores are an attractive solution both in new construction and rehabilitation of existing bridge decks. FRP sandwich panels, comprising of two face plates separated by a core of stiffeners offer better performance due to high stiffness-to-mass ratio along with numerous impressive properties like corrosion resistance, high impact strength etc. Analysis of sandwich panels using exact three dimensional (3D) modelling is very much complicated and also time consuming. To overcome this problem, the whole deck panel can be assumed as an equivalent orthotropic continuum for simplified analysis. This paper is focused on a numerical study to find equivalent elastic constants to replace FRP sandwich panel with a homogeneous orthotropic plate as shown in Fig. 1. The present numerical model is applicable for the sandwich panels with any type of core geometry which is periodic in nature. The equivalent material properties generated from the present analysis are validated by comparing with some reported theoretical and numerical results. To determine flexibility of the present model, equivalent orthotropic properties have been generated for FRP sandwich panels with three types of core configurations: rib, circular and triangular. Static and dynamic analyses have also been performed using the proposed equivalent model and the results are compared with the results obtained from 3D finite element (FE) model.

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