FRP honeycomb sandwich panels in steel framed composite buildings under earthquake loading

Modern construction technology is largely focused on the use of composite materials to build cost-effective structures as well to reduce the overall weight. Therefore, structural sandwich composite panels are nowadays widely and extensively used in aerospace, marine, building and consumer industries. Sandwich panels are lightweight and strong materials whose water and termite resistant properties are making them a very viable alternative for civil construction. Earthquake performance is one of the most important factors that can encourage wider use of composites in engineering structures. To provide an acceptable performance from the sandwich panels in the case of earthquake, its interaction with the building frame needs to be carefully examined. The paper presents the use of sandwich panels in earthquake performance can be predicted by using finite element method (FEM). In this scope, two types of steel structures, consisting of sandwich panels and concrete slabs, are modeled and analyzed using ANSYS. Finally, results are examined and compared.