Structural and thermal performance of a novel form of cladding panel: the I-beam beetle elytron plate 

Abstract

To develop a nonbearing prefabricated straw sandwich concrete wallboard (I-beam beetle elytron plate: IBEPsc), the effect of certain structural parameters (e.g., panel thickness T, number of I-cores N and core height h) on the mechanical and thermal insulation performance was investigated by using the finite element method. The results are as follows: 1) The bearing capacity of the IBEPsc is controlled by the maximum principal tensile stress; the optimal structural parameters of the IBEPsc for a self-insulated wall with a large safety margin are presented. 2) The consideration of strips vs. whole plates and the selected upper bearing constraint type have little influence on the mechanical properties. In practical applications, the strips and whole plates can be reasonably selected according to engineering needs, and these components can be connected with the main structure by conventional mortar. 3) According to a qualitative analysis and comparison with common I-shaped thermal insulation walls, the IBEPsc requires the least material and weight while ensuring a sufficient safety margin in terms of mechanical and thermal insulation performance. Hence, biomimic techniques can play a key role in breaking through the limitations of traditional structures. This paper can help direct the application of beetle elytron plates in prefabricated wallboards.

Structural Parameters and Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Four Beetle Elytron Plate Walls

“…With the expected application scenario of passive housing in southeastern China, optimal parameter values were proposed to achieve the best mechanical and insulation performance under assumed load conditions (mechanical performance includes maximum stress and maximum deflection, and insulation performance includes heat transfer coefficient). The complete optimization process and details are available in the references (Zhang et al, 2019(Zhang et al, , 2020aHu, 2021;Hu et al, 2021). In the comparative study of this article, the core structural parameters of the four BEPsc are still set to the optimal values in the original paper and listed in Table 1.…”

“…In fact, several years ago, biomimetic sandwich panels with mechanical cement-based straw cores were proposed as an important development direction (Yu et al, 2021;Chen et al, 2021a). Subsequently, four beetle elytron plate (BEP) nonload-bearing walls were proposed, whose mechanical and self-insulating properties are suitable for buildings highly affected by typhoons in the coastal areas of eastern and southern China (Zhang et al, 2019(Zhang et al, , 2020aHu, 2021;Hu et al, 2021).…”

“…As research progressed, BEPs with hollow columns tended to show better mechanical properties. Therefore, an attempt to replicate the biological original structure more realistically has led to the proposal of the wall-end column beetle elytron plate (EBEPsc (Hu, 2021), Figure 2c). In addition, the low functionality for bending resistance of the vertical column located in the middle of the thin wall was realized when reviewing the VBEPsc.…”

“…In addition, the low functionality for bending resistance of the vertical column located in the middle of the thin wall was realized when reviewing the VBEPsc. Accordingly, by canceling the unnecessary columns and adopting an I-shaped structure, an I-beam beetle elytron plate 1 (IBEPsc, Figure 2d) was proposed (Hu et al, 2021).…”

“…In this paper, four proposed models, with the optimal structural parameters reported in previous studies and two additional optimized models, were unified with respect to thickness. A (Hu, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Song et al, 2021); c, d -Two different BEPs (Chen et al, 2002(Chen et al, , 2012(Chen et al, , 2019bChen, 2018)…”