Thermo-mechanical analysis of GFRP-glass sandwich facade components

Building envelopes are becoming more and more high engineered systems that need to meet strict requirements regarding architectural intent, structural capacity, energy-efficiency and comfort, durability etc.. In this regard, the research study presented in this paper assess the performance of novel engineered unitised systems for curtain walls, as compared to traditional aluminium unitised systems with infill panels. The proposed facade systems instead has a sandwich design, made of two outer glass face sheets bonded to glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) pultruded profiles. This arrangement results in a lightweight and slim structure that can potentially provide high structural and thermal performances. Finite Element (FE) numerical results, summarised in the paper, give evidence of the potential of the novel design concept, with improved thermal and structural performances compared to traditional non-integrated systems (up to +10% and +15% the reference performance parameters, respectively). Future work is needed to take into account further facade design aspects, as those related to installation, re-glazing, durability, climatic loading etc.