Hybrid thin-walled members made of FRP and timber

The increasing interest in timber as a sustainable construction material has led to the development of a new type of structures called hybrid FRP-timber (HFT) thin-walled structures. In these structures, FRP is combined with timber veneers to create high performance, lightweight, and easy-to-construct structural members. This new type of structural members can be used in many applications such as load bearing walls, roof structures, floor panels, bridge decks, etc. The HFT composite technology harnesses the orthotropic properties of both timber and FRP by orientating material fibre directions for optimal composite properties as well as the efficiency of thin-walled cross-sectional geometry. This paper describes several novel HFT structural member forms and presents results from a preliminary experimental investigation into the behaviour of HFT wall panels. A comparison of behaviour between an HFT wall panel and a pure timber wall panel is presented to show that the HFT system significantly outperforms the pure timber system in terms of both axial compressive strength and axial strain at failure.