| Abstract: | Sandwich Plate System (SPS). SPS was initially developed to provide impact resistant plating for offshore structures, ice islands, working in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. Research and development over the last thirteen years has focused on basic research into structural behaviour and performance, material characterization, fire resistance and fire engineering analyses, as well as development of design rules and energy absorption design philosophies. In addition connection details specific to sandwich plate structures and methods for in‐situ installations (SPS Overlay), repair, prefabrication and inspection have been developed. This work summarized in this paper, clearly demonstrates that not only SPS plates can be designed to be structurally equivalent to stiffened steel plates, but that the implied economical use of SPS plates provides a number of further advantages with respect to performance and safety. |
