Structural and thermal behaviour of a timber-concrete prefabricated composite wall system

Wood is the oldest building materials and still now it plays an important role in the construction sector. There are many general advantages in using timber for building purposes. First of all, it is an environmentally friendly, easily recyclable material; it has a low weight in relation to strength, which is advantageous for transport, handling and production; moreover wood has aesthetic qualities, which give great possibilities in architectural design. Lastly wooden structures have an excellent performance in case of earthquake if compared to traditional structures. In Europe the development of the timber-concrete composite structures (TCC) began during a shortage of steel for reinforcement in concrete in the beginning of XX century. TCC application was primarily a refurbishment technique for old historical buildings, during the last 50 years interest in TCC systems has increased, resulting in the construction also of new buildings. This paper presents the analysis of the structural and thermal behaviour of an timber-concrete prefabricated composite wall system, the Concrete Glulam Framed Panel (CGFP) which is a panel made of a concrete slab and a structural glulam frame. The research analyses the structural performance with quasi-static in-plane tests, focused on the in-plane strength and stiffness of individual panels, and the thermal behaviour of the system with steady state tests using an hot box apparatus. The results validate the efficacy of proposed system ensuring the resistance and the dissipative structural behaviour through the hierarchy response characterized by the wood frame, the braced reinforced concrete panel of the singular module and by the rocking effects of global system. On the other side hot-box measures demonstrated a high level of thermal resistance of the system reaching U-values around 0,20 W m-2 K-1. Moreover experimental data permitted to calibrate a FEM model with which will be possible to study and analyse the panels in different conditions and configuration in both mechanical and thermal field.