Sandwich panels are used across commercial vehicles, construction, and industrial applications where engineers need to replace heavy steel or wood with a lighter, more durable structural material. The core principle is simple: two stiff outer skins bonded to a lightweight core create a structure that punches well above its weight in bending strength and rigidity. The questions below unpack the most common applications, the performance properties that drive adoption, and the format options available to manufacturers.
Note: This article covers the broader sandwich panel market. Our range at Compoform is limited to PP honeycomb and PET foam cores for commercial vehicles and scaffolding.
What industries use sandwich panels most?
Commercial vehicle manufacturing and construction are the two industries that use sandwich panels most heavily in 2026. Truck body builders, trailer manufacturers, and cargo box producers rely on sandwich panels for floors, walls, and roofs. In construction, scaffolding boards and façade cladding are the dominant applications. Both sectors share the same core requirement: structural performance at a fraction of the weight of steel or timber.
Within commercial vehicles, the adoption of sandwich panels has accelerated significantly. Trailer sidewalls, refrigerated truck bodies, and cargo van floors are now routinely built with fibre-reinforced thermoplastic sandwich panels rather than plywood or steel sheet. The weight saving translates directly into payload capacity, which is a measurable commercial advantage for fleet operators and logistics companies.
Scaffolding is a growing application area. Composite scaffold boards offer a consistent, repeatable load performance that timber cannot match, and they do not absorb water, warp, or degrade in the way that wood does after repeated exposure to weather and site conditions.
Other sectors where sandwich panels appear regularly include:
- Horse vans and livestock transport
- Mobile homes and caravans
- Bus and coach bodywork
- Façade cladding in commercial buildings
- Modular site cabins and temporary structures
Why are sandwich panels replacing steel and wood in vehicles?
Sandwich panels are replacing steel and wood in vehicles primarily because they deliver comparable or superior structural performance at significantly lower weight. Steel adds dead weight that reduces legally permitted payload. Plywood degrades, absorbs moisture, and requires replacement every three to five years in heavy transport use. A thermoplastic composite sandwich panel addresses both problems simultaneously.
The payload argument is straightforward. Every kilogram saved in the body structure of a truck or trailer is a kilogram that can carry revenue-generating cargo. Over a vehicle’s working life, that difference compounds into a measurable financial advantage for the operator.
In 2026, weight reduction carries an additional argument that procurement teams at fleet operators now raise as a standard question: battery range in electric trucks and vans. Lighter body structures extend the range of electric vehicles per charge. Every kilogram of structural dead weight reduces how far the vehicle travels before it needs to recharge. For EV fleet buyers, weight reduction is a range argument as much as a payload argument, and it is reshaping how vehicle body specifications are written.
Durability is the other major driver. In heavy transport, thermoplastic composite floors typically last twelve or more years under regular use. Plywood floors in the same conditions often require replacement after three to five years. Over a fifteen-year vehicle life, a composite floor eliminates two or three plywood replacement cycles. Once you factor in panel cost, installation labour, and vehicle downtime during replacement, the composite option is cheaper per year of service even when the upfront unit price is higher.
What types of sandwich panels are available?
Sandwich panels are defined by their core material and their skin material, and the combination determines the panel’s weight, stiffness, load capacity, and suitability for a given application. The most common core types in the commercial vehicle and construction panel applications are PP honeycomb, PET foam, and PP foam. Skins are typically glass-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic laminates, though steel, aluminium, and other materials are used in other market segments.
Core material options
PP honeycomb cores use a polypropylene tube structure that delivers high compressive and bending strength relative to weight. They are well suited to floor panels and structural decking where point loads and distributed loads are both relevant. PP honeycomb at 140 kg/m³ is a common specification for heavy-duty floor applications.
PP foam and PET foam cores offer a different balance. Oriented PP foam is available across a wide density range, which allows the core stiffness and strength to be tuned to the application. Lower-density foam cores suit wall cladding panels where bending loads are moderate. Higher-density foam cores can be specified for applications that demand more from the core itself.
Skin architecture options
The skin laminate determines how the panel behaves under load and what its surface finish looks like. Common configurations include:
- Cross-ply (CP) laminates: fibres oriented at 0° and 90° in alternating layers, which equalises mechanical properties in both directions and makes the panel suitable for installation in either orientation
- Multi-ply unidirectional laminates: two-ply or four-ply configurations that concentrate strength in a primary load direction
- PET-film surface finish: a white, UV-resistant outer layer used on wall panels, with over 22,000 hours of UV resistance in testing
- Anti-skid surface finish: a black textured surface used on floor panels and scaffolding boards where slip resistance is a safety requirement
How do sandwich panels perform under load and impact?
Sandwich panels perform well under both distributed and point loads because the structural logic of the design separates the functions of stiffness and strength. The stiff outer skins carry tensile and compressive stress, while the core maintains the separation between them and resists shear. This makes the panel far stiffer in bending than a solid sheet of the same weight.
For floor panels using a PP honeycomb core, the load capacity is substantial. A 30 mm floor panel tested to ISO 14125 sustains significantly higher maximum loads than a 15 mm variant of the same construction, reflecting how core thickness directly amplifies bending performance. The specific values depend on panel configuration and test geometry, so the relevant comparison for any application is always against the actual load case the panel will face in service.
Impact resistance is a relevant consideration for vehicle floors and scaffolding boards, both of which face repeated mechanical stress in use. Glass-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic skins with 66 to 67% glass fibre content by weight deliver high tensile performance in both fibre orientations, measured per EN ISO 527. Continuous fibre-reinforced tape technology can further increase impact resistance compared to standard composite constructions.
For scaffolding specifically, the load class achieved by a panel is the governing performance criterion under EN 12811. A correctly specified composite scaffold board can achieve EN 12811 load class 4 with no support underneath, which is the performance threshold that matters for site safety compliance.
What size and format options do sandwich panels come in?
Sandwich panels are available in a wide range of thicknesses, widths, and lengths, with the maximum dimensions determined by the manufacturer’s production line. Standard market configurations cover thicknesses from around 10 mm to 150 mm. Width and length options vary considerably, and the ability to produce large-format panels in a single piece is a meaningful advantage for vehicle body builders who want to minimise joints.
Panel format choices that matter most for manufacturers include:
- Overall dimensions: larger panels reduce the number of joints in a structure, which simplifies assembly and improves structural continuity
- Thickness: determines the bending stiffness and load capacity of the panel; thicker panels carry more load but add weight
- Surface finish: PET-film, anti-skid, or raw laminate, depending on whether the panel surface is visible, load-bearing, or bonded to another component
- Edge treatment: edge sealing and edge bending protect the core from moisture ingress and UV exposure, which is particularly relevant for panels used in scaffolding or vehicle floors that are regularly washed down
Custom dimensions cut to your exact specification are available from specialist manufacturers, which removes the need to cut down oversized standard sheets on your own production line and reduces material waste.
Are sandwich panels a sustainable material choice?
Thermoplastic sandwich panels are a more sustainable structural material than steel or plywood across several dimensions: lower weight reduces fuel and energy consumption over the product’s working life, longer service life reduces replacement frequency, and thermoplastic materials are recyclable at end of life. For European manufacturers, recyclability is increasingly a compliance matter, not just a preference.
The EU End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive sets recyclability requirements for vehicle components, and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires larger European companies to report on the environmental impact of their supply chains. Specifying thermoplastic composite panels supports both compliance frameworks in a way that thermoset composites, which cannot be remelted and recycled, do not.
The durability argument also has a sustainability dimension. A panel that lasts twelve or more years in heavy transport use consumes fewer raw materials over the vehicle’s life than a panel that requires replacement every three to five years. Fewer replacement cycles mean less manufacturing energy, less transport, and less waste.
Weight reduction compounds the environmental benefit over time. A lighter vehicle body reduces fuel consumption in diesel trucks and extends battery range in electric vehicles. Across a fleet operating over many years, the cumulative reduction in energy consumption from a lighter body structure is significant.
How Compoform Helps You Specify the Right Sandwich Panel
We manufacture fibre-reinforced thermoplastic sandwich panels for commercial vehicle manufacturers and scaffolding producers across Europe. Our panels use PP honeycomb or PET foam cores with glass-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic skins, and we produce them at our facilities in Beek and Ospel in the Netherlands on a 72-metre semi-automatic production line capable of panels up to 13,500 mm × 2,950 mm.
What that means in practice for your production:
- Large-format panels in a single piece reduce joints in truck bodies and trailer sidewalls, simplifying your assembly process
- A 30 mm PP honeycomb floor panel is self-supporting with no aluminium subframe required, removing a production step and reducing your total cost of build
- Thermoplastic composite floors last three to four times longer than plywood in heavy transport, eliminating two to three replacement cycles over a vehicle’s working life and reducing your customers’ total cost of ownership
- Edge sealing and edge bending are available to protect the core from moisture and UV, which matters for floors that are regularly pressure-washed and for scaffolding boards exposed to site conditions
- Custom dimensions are cut to your exact specification, not to a standard sheet size you then have to work around
We work with you as an application partner, not a panel supplier. That means we review your design, assess the load case your panel will face in service, and recommend the core density, skin architecture, and surface finish that fits your assembly process and your end customer’s requirements. We flag issues before production starts, not after the first batch arrives.
If you are building truck bodies, trailers, or scaffolding boards and want to move away from plywood or steel, speak with our engineering team about your specific application.