15th Biennial ASCE Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments
Thermo-Mechanical Behavior of a Novel Functionally Graded Material Panel
Publication: Earth and Space 2016: Engineering for Extreme Environments
ABSTRACT
An aluminum/high-density polyethylene (HDPE) functionally graded material (FGM) has been fabricated as a key component of a multifunctional building envelope for high performance of energy efficiency and sustainability. The FGM layer gradually transits material phases from the well-conductive side (dominated with aluminum) to another highly insulated side (dominated with HDPE). The heat in the PV cells can be easily transferred into the conductive side of the FGM and then collected by the water flow in the embedded tubes. Therefore, the operational temperature of the PV cells can be significantly lowered down, which recovers the PV efficiency at high temperatures and at the mean while collect hot water for residential usages. Because of the gradual phase change of aluminum and HDPE across the thickness direction, after cooled down and removed from the mold, considerable curving deformation was found in the final product of the designed FGM panel. Such curving deformation causes quite challenges in assembling the FGM panel into a flat multifunctional roofing panel and bring forth serious impact on the structural integrity. To overcome such a problem, the thermal and mechanical behaviors of the FGM panel have to be well predicted. For this purpose, a closed-form solution based on a refined plate theory is presented in this study for a FGM circular plate subjected to thermo-mechanical loading. Corresponding experimental tests have been conducted to verify the present theoretical solutions. It was found that the presented theoretical model is able to accurately predict the thermo-mechanical behavior of the developed FGM panel.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation CMMI 0954717, whose supports are gratefully acknowledged. The authors also appreciate the support of the Henry Mitchell Weitzner Research Fund, which will be used in the research of roofing materials for solar energy applications and technologies.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Earth and Space 2016: Engineering for Extreme Environments
Pages: 847 - 857
Editors: Ramesh B. Malla, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, Juan H. Agui, Ph.D., NASA Glenn Research Center, and Paul J. van Susante, Ph.D, Michigan Technological University
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-7997-1
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Jun 29, 2017
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