Flexural studies on Basalt Fiber Reinforced Composite sandwich panel with profile sheet as core Smriti Raj a,⇑ , V. Ramesh Kumar b , B.H. Bharath Kumar c , Smitha Gopinath d , Nagesh R. Iyer d a Advance Materials Laboratory, Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, CSIR-SERC, Taramani, Chennai 600113, Tamil Nadu, India b Computational Structural Mechanics Group, Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, CSIR-SERC, Taramani, Chennai 600113, Tamil Nadu, India c Advance Materials Laboratory, CSIR-SERC, Taramani, Chennai 600113, Tamil Nadu, India d Computational Structural Mechanics Group, CSIR-SERC, Taramani, Chennai 600113, Tamil Nadu, India highlights  Basalt fiber & profile sheet are used in sandwich panel, studied as flexural member.  Constructed adopting both prefabrication and cast-in-situ construction process.  The panel has ultimate flexural strength of 26 kN exhibiting ductile behaviour.  Compositeness, failure mechanism & debonding phenomenon was studied experimentally.  Partial compositeness of the panel has been validated using numerical approach. article info Article history: Received 30 October 2014 Received in revised form 14 February 2015 Accepted 28 February 2015 Keywords: Sandwich panel Profile sheet Basalt Flexural member Cast-in-situ Finite element abstract In this paper, the experimental behaviour of Basalt Fiber Reinforced Composite (BFRC) sandwich panel under flexural loading has been investigated. The BFRC sandwich panel investigated in this study com- prises of top skin, bottom skin and core. Both top and bottom skin are composed of BFRC mix and flanges of profile sheet to act as composite in effectively resisting flexure where as the core is constituted by the web portion of profile sheet in resisting shear. The panel is constructed by adopting both prefabrication and cast-in-situ construction process exploiting the advantages of both the process. The panel has ulti- mate flexural strength of 26 kN, exhibiting ductile behaviour. The panel exhibited 200% ductility over the deflection at the ultimate load with 10% loss in the ultimate load making it an ideal for flooring units. Further, numerical study has been conducted to assess the integrity of the connection between skin and core and to find the effectiveness of connection on overall strength, stiffness of the panel. The results from the finite element analysis have been compared with the experimental results of BFRC sandwich panel and are found to be in good agreement. Finite element study also helped in concluding that with improved connection mechanism both strength and stiffness of panel can be enhanced. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Sandwich panel is an often sought out area of research in the field of civil engineering for its open bounds in arriving at a panel which is competent in terms of strength, stiffness and weight using new construction materials [1]. The present civil engineering industry demands ease and fast track construction probing research towards prefabrication and light weight structural ele- ment, thereby making sandwich panel as one of the main area of research [2]. Sandwich panel generally consists of two skins bonded together by a core to act as single integral system. Theoretically in a homogenous sandwich panel, all the components should be constrained against relative movement in order to ensure proper composite action without any relative slip due to interfacial shear. But in case of composite sandwich panel it is unlikely to achieve full composite action due to differential curva- ture attributed by stiffness variation of the materials used [3]. The mid 1940’s, marked the use sandwich panel and the basic idea was to develop it for structural application was initiated after 1970 [4]. Generally composite panels were constructed of honey- comb core with different types of facing material like plywood, high density and medium density hard board, cement, asbestos, aluminium, etc. The inner core was classified broadly into cellular, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.02.087 0950-0618/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9003073865. E-mail address: smritiraj007@gmail.com (S. Raj). Construction and Building Materials 82 (2015) 391–400 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat