Patent Grant
12338626
This application is an original filing of the invention and does not claim a right of priority to any other application or the benefit of an earlier filing date.
Not Applicable.
Not Applicable.
The present invention pertains to modular wall panels formed with installation channels for various conduits and junctions, including electrical power, electrical communication, plumbing, central vacuum, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).
The invention relates to prefabricated modular building construction and units utilized in that construction. Prefabricated building components are used for construction because of their efficiency in installation which can potentially have expense cutting aspects and the reduction in the depletion of natural resources.
Historically the use of two by four (2×4) studs of wood or other lumber of standard dimensions were most commonly used to fabricate the interior and exterior portions of buildings. Skilled tradesmen and a significant amount of time are needed for the fabrication of buildings by this traditional method of building construction. While prefabricated walls made from studs are available, the weight of the units makes them less efficient for installation. These prefabricated walls do not overcome the issue of the depletion of natural resources because they use standard lumber, the manufacturing of which involves a significant amount of waste material. Due to the weight and size of these types of prefabricated walls there are issues with shipping and storage. Furthermore, the continuous use of lumber in construction of prefabricated wall systems inadequately addresses global challenges of ever increasing lumber shortages and high materials cost despite decreasing lumber quality, due to droughts, beetle infestations and wild fires caused by climate change. The installation of elements such as electrical, plumbing, and heating and cooling elements requires drilling, threading, blocking or other time consuming methods for installation because there are no channels for the horizontal placement of these systems.
Standard stud framed walls, require a complete new electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems design for every new building design because there is no system available which standardizes these kinds of installation which not only create unnecessary logjams and time consuming coordination between mechanical, electrical and plumbing trades but also is prone to cause miscommunication, mistakes and conflicts that would be minimized through a more standardized approach that reduces cost and time spent fixing problems. Additionally, stud framed walls are very limiting regarding the placement of electrical junction boxes (“j-box”) because boxes typically need to be attached to the side of a stud, installed with some sort of blocking between studs or special brackets to be mounted in the desired location between two adjacent studs. Furthermore, standard stud framed walls provide limited attachment points for hanging heavy cabinetry, which are predominately mounted directly to the studs. There is therefore a desire for a wall panel and system that increases the mounting options and minimizes the need for extra blocking or braces to mount j-boxes anywhere along a wall to save on installation time and material. There is also a desire for a wall panel and system that significantly increases the area where heavy items can be wall mounted by offering a continuous corrugated panel made of strong and durable composite materials to provide almost unlimited options to attach heavier items anywhere on the panel.
Other systems using prefabricated walls use materials such as metal sheets or poured concrete or cement forms. These types of systems have been unable to overcome the need for skilled tradesmen for installation. Additionally, the prefabricated components are heavy and are unable to be installed without the use of specialty equipment such as cranes, lifts, or other heavy mechanical equipment. In addition, many of the systems have been unable to accommodate plumbing, electrical, and HVAC or make it difficult to install these systems because of the inability to directly install without feeding the systems through complex or small openings. Many of the systems additionally have not been made of materials that help cut costs and reduce the use of non-renewable resources, or are cumbersome and installation is inconvenient and time consuming. As the construction industry is struggling worldwide with labor shortages, high labor cost, high material costs due to lumber shortages, long building time and low profitability, a modular building system is needed to help ameliorate these challenges.
Panels in the prior art include U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,249,572, 9,790,684 and 10,077,553 by Neumayr which describe wall assemblies made from corrugated wall panels that have various channels for plumbing, electrical, and HVAC installations. Another panel system in the prior art is described in U.S. Pat. No. 10,563,400 by Graham. This prefabricated structural building panel describes a wall panel with multiple channels and a step within the channel to accommodate electrical boxes. However, the channel and steps in the '400 Patent are limited given they are so far recessed into the channel that they can only be used to receive an electrical box and cannot readily function to close the open channels, to create a continuous solid front surface or readily accommodate other mounting brackets for plumbing and electrical components that are necessarily closer to the front face of the panel.
The '400 Patent is suited for very limited electrical installations only, as the channel width, per suggested dimensions, does not provide sufficient space to fit standard j-boxes of different sizes that are customarily used by those in the art. Instead, the '400 Patent is limited to a 1-gang or a 2-gang 4S j-boxes which have standard dimensions of four by four inches (4″×4″). Switch clusters, which are customarily oriented in lateral direction and located next to a door opening, often need to fit up to a 6-gang j-box which is considerably wider than the space provided in the '400 Patent. In addition, based on the dimensions given in
Further still, the '400 Patent does not provide a solution to cross thread electrical wiring horizontally to connect j-boxes for wall outlets, which are by code to be positioned every eight feet (8′) and are customarily also wired in lateral direction. The '400 Patent further limits its plumbing pipe diameter to a diameter of one and one half inch (1½″), which limits the application to the installation of sinks where pipes of greater diameter for waste water lines for showers, bathtubs, washers, or toilets, required by code of a minimum two inches (2″) in diameter in certain regions. According to the teachings of FIG. 5 of the '400 Patent, the longitudinal channel provides no solution to feed pipes horizontally, which is a prerequisite for the code compliant installation of vent pipes and wastewater main stack assemblies as needed for toilet installations and which customarily require a minimum interior pipe diameter size of three inches (3″) and thereby require significantly wider installation space than five inches (5″). In addition, there is no option to run fresh water, waste water and vent lines both side by side vertically as well as horizontally, which make the '400 Patent virtually unsuitable for the most standard plumbing installation to comply with IPC or UPC codes.
Prior art like U.S. Pat. No. 9,249,572 by Neumayr and the 400' Patent by Graham also fail to provide a practical solution to mount multiple electrical j-boxes and waste water plumbing lines simultaneously at varying installation depths and different vertical installation heights, in the same channel. Similarly, they do not provide a solution to run multiple large diameter waste water pipes of varying diameters, in the same longitudinal channel parallel to one another, as needed for standard toilet installs. Prior Art such as U.S. Pat. No. 9,010,054 by Herdt and U.S. Pat. No. 10,077,553 by Neumayr show narrow installation cannels and the transitions between the longitudinal to the lateral channels are either at sharp ninety degree (90°) angles, which offer insufficient space for rigid electrical conduit, which have a minimum bending radius of four inches (4″), and plumbing fittings of larger curvature such as elbows, sweeps or sanitary-T's or W's. In order to avoid pipe crossings or crossings of rigid electrical conduits and to be able to run these fittings parallel to one another, the transitions between the longitudinal and lateral channels need to be able to provide a sufficiently large curvature to accommodate the large bend radii of these objects to allow for a space saving install of pipes close to the sidewalls of the channels. This space is paramount as it allows for sufficient additional installation space for standard drain pipe and vent pipe configuration where large diameter wastewater and vent pipes need to be placed parallel to one another. In addition, both plumbing pipes and electrical conduits need to be secured in place which is customarily done via plumber's tape or other means of fastening. To achieve a secure attachment to the panel, the various pipes need to be close to the sidewalls of the channels for such attachment to the panel can occur.
The above mentioned '054 Patent, '572 Patent, '684 Patent and '553 Patent also suggests sharp edged surface transitions and various design details like ridges in the horizontal channel, which are only found on the frontside of the corrugated panel, and thickened which fail to meet moldability requirements of bio-based strand materials. The design details as suggested in the '553 Patent, specifically the thickened frames cannot be formed with state-of-the-art production methods and would not allow for a consistent density. If the thickened side frames and top and bottom frames were to be formed to a thickness greater than the overall panel thickness, which would negatively affect the internal bond strength between the various strand layers, the ninety degree (90°) deformation of the strand mat at the side edges of the panel, which is needed to create these thickened edges, would cause breakage and shear thinning of the strands and render the panel unsuitable to provide the needed structural integrity. Accordingly, there is a desire in the art to provide an improved wall panel with particular features that ease installation and manufacturing and provide a better end product.
According to various aspects of the present disclosure, there are provided multiple descriptions of the present invention. The present disclosure includes a prefabricated wall panel that can be made from fast growing plant fibers or from materials which are otherwise waste products in the agricultural and forestry industry. Examples of natural fast growing plant fibers, agricultural and forestry by-products, and waste products include wood chips, wood strands, wood particles, wood wafers, bagasse, coconut husk, straw, hemp, sorghum grass, corn husks, corn stalks or corn stover, agave, coconut or bamboo, or similar suitable natural fibers, i.e., organic-based composite materials. The present system also helps in overcoming the need for waste disposal of these byproducts in their respective industries. As there is an urgent need in the construction industry to reduce carbon emission through long time carbon storage to ameliorate the negative effects of climate change, the present system can be made of waste from forest management, such as beetle infested trees, small diameter timber, and burned logs left over from forest fires which cannot otherwise be readily used by the timber industry. The present system not only provides long time carbon storage by capturing carbon in corrugated wall panels but it also gives these materials commercial value. Using wood waste from forest management activities creates and incentivizes the removal of overabundant forest waste which will greatly reduce the risk of wildfires, an ever-growing international threat caused by climate change. At the same time, the removal of these materials helps restore biodiversity and provides the grounds for a healthy and resilient forest and reforestation efforts which would not be possible without the removal of forest waste. In addition, the option to make the panels described herein from forest waste creates a demand for these waste products which reduces carbon emission as unwanted material is usually burned by the forest service, releasing additional CO2 into the atmosphere.
In addition to overcoming the need to utilize the waste associated with the above disclosed industries, utilizing these plant fibers generates a second form of income for farmers and companies in these industries as the byproducts of farming can now be utilized as viable building materials. The use of this abundant waste product allows for the construction of the present invention to be lower in terms of raw materials costs, lower production prices, and higher profit margins for manufactures enabling a delivery of a sustainable product of equal or lower cost than conventional lumber or prefabricated metal and concrete structures. These prefabricated structures can be utilized in both new and redesigned structures because of the unique way the prefabricated structures enable all components in modern buildings (electrical, plumbing, central vacuum, and HVAC) to be run through the structures. Additionally, color coded areas, human readable indicia, and/or machine readable indicia can be shown on the panel as described in detail below which enables the ease of construction by identifying the location of electrical and/or plumbing components and can reduce waste.
The wall panels of the present disclosure are preferably sized to be equal or similar to standard building materials and thus can be installed by one or two workers, eliminating the need for cranes, advanced delivery systems and installation materials, overcoming some of the obstacles of other prefabricated systems. The panels are capable of being cut to length so that they can be utilized to build a particular desired sized structure. Additionally, the openings for windows, doors and other portal elements can be cut into the structures for installation of these additional elements in construction or created by assembling prefabricated wall modules, headers and window sills.
The panels can be mixed with conventional framing techniques and used in concert with conventional tools for installation reducing the need for a set of separately skilled laborers for the installation. Many of the other prefabricated systems, using metal or other materials are unable to accommodate horizontal and vertical installation of electrical, plumbing, central vacuum and HVAC systems. In addition, the way the channels are formed eliminates the need to thread these systems through the preformed panels and provides a planar mounting surface, parallel to the front face of the panel, set at a standard depth of the most commonly used electrical boxes, at the correct and code compliant mounting height and depth. Thus, enabling the current invention to partner in both new and existing structures, while reducing time and the need for additional blocking, drilling, fishing, and feeding.
According to one aspect of the invention described herein, each channel has a step on both sidewalls proximate to the front face and in another embodiment at least one sidewall of one of the channels has at least one other step to accommodate various installation brackets and boxes at multiple positions within the channel.
According to another aspect of the invention described herein, each transition between the various faces on the front and back of the panel has a curve, without any sharp corner. By providing curvatures at surface and channel transitions, where the curvatures are measurably larger, the further the transition is located from the front face of the corrugated panel towards the backside of the corrugated panel, it allows to overcome several issues, such as providing needed space to accommodate both plumbing pipes and elbows and rigid electrical elbows, to be located close to the sidewalls and therefor provide sufficient installation space for various pipes. The pipes can run parallel in one channel and one or more of the pipes can transition into another channel that intersects perpendicular to the first channel, Furthermore the curved curvatures overcome shear thinning of the strand mat at sharp corner transitions.
According to another aspect of the invention described herein, some of the channel sidewalls can include an indent portion that allows for further connection of brackets and the like that are installed within the channels.
According to another aspect of the invention described herein, the corners of the panel are recessed from the front face.
According to yet another aspect of the invention described herein, floor and mid lines are marked on the front of each panel and a vertical centerline is marked on the front of each panel. The lines are either printed, stenciled, debossed, embossed, milled, engraved, or otherwise placed on the front face of the corrugated panel, such as with a sticker, following the full panel contour. The panel can also feature machine readable and/or scannable indicia, such as barcodes, QR codes, non fungible tokens (NFTs), or the like.
Further areas of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating the preferred embodiment of the invention, are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description and the accompanying drawings. The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. It is to be understood that in some instances, various aspects of the invention may be shown exaggerated or enlarged to facilitate an understanding of the invention; therefore, the drawings are not necessarily to scale. In addition, in the embodiments depicted herein, like reference numerals in the various drawings refer to identical or near identical structural elements.
The following description of the preferred embodiment(s) is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention, its application, or uses.
The preferred embodiments of the wall panels 12 described herein include series of lateral channels 16 for horizontal installation and at least one longitudinal channel 14 for vertical installation of conduits and components for electrical, plumbing, central vacuum, and HVAC systems.
Each channel 14, 16 has opposing sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b and that span the corresponding channel depth between proximal ends connected to the front face 28 and distal ends connected to a channel trough 38, 40a, 40b, 40c, 40d. The sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b are preferably sloping between the proximal and distal ends to allow for identically shaped corrugated panels to be stored and transported in tightly packed stacks and to be individually removed from the stack without the panels 12 binding to each other. However, the sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b could be perpendicular to the front face 28 without departing from the inventive aspects of the invention described herein. The longitudinal and lateral channels 14, 16 within each panel 12 allow for easy installation of and the conduits and components for electrical, plumbing, HVAC systems, central vacuum, insulation and other utilities without the need for threading as with previously designed systems.
In addition to lateral and longitudinal channels 14, 16 on the front of the panel 12, an alternative embodiment may also have a rear channel on the back of the panel 12. As particularly shown in
Generally, the channels 14, 16 of the present invention enable installation without the need for complex threading, looping, lacing or time consuming measures. Adjacent wall panel assemblies have channels at the same location relative to panels side, top and bottom edges so that the conduits can run the entire length or height of the wall if needed. The lower lateral channel 16 is proximate to the bottom edge 34, with the pair of middle lateral channels being proximate to the center of the corrugated panel, and the upper lateral channel is above the center of the corrugated panel. The lateral channel 16 is preferably centered on the wall panel 12.
With the lateral and longitudinal channels 14, 16 spanning the width and height of the panel 12, the channels 14, 16 intersect at channel transitions 18a, 18b, 18c, 18d (collectively referred as channel transitions 18) across the front and back face 28, 30 of the panel 12. In all embodiments, the channel transitions 18 and other transitions discussed below have curved sections with a radius of curvature 22, devoid of a right angle with a shear sharp corner. Proximal and distal sidewall transitions 46, 48 also have curved sections with a radius of curvatures rather than a shear sharp corner. As detailed below, the radius of curvature may vary relative to the position of the transitions on the panel 12, particularly for the channel transitions, but each curved section has a curve:thickness ratio between the radius of curvature and the panel material thickness that ranges between 0.5:1 and 20:1 and is preferably approximately 5:1. Preferably, at least one channel sidewall has a flat region; accordingly, the radius of curvature is limited based on the distance between parallel channels. Furthermore, steps 20 within the sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b of the channels 14, 16, discussed below, also have curved step transitions 50. Instead of shear, sharp corners, a curved corner section is an inventive concept that allows mass production of corrugated panels that is not otherwise feasible if transition sections were to include sharp corners. The preferred corrugated panel is made from wood strands or long plant fibers and pressed into the intended panel shape wherein transitions with sharp corners are undesirable because of the shearing that would occur during the manufacturing process.
The preferred corrugated panel is made from wood strands made from small diameter timber or other suitable materials. To achieve the desired structural performance, the length and integrity of the wood strands in three dimensional forming the corrugated panel is vital. Adequately curved surface transitions 18, 46, 48, 50 between surfaces prevent the wood strands from breaking during the deep three dimensional deformation process. Of primary importance, if the channel transitions 18 between the lateral and longitudinal channels 14, 16, especially in the region around the panel front faces 28, have sharp corners or sharp-edged surface transitions, the lignum fibers inside the wood strands or any other suitable biobased strand like material, could either be weakened, tear or break, rending the strands unsuitable to become a corrugated panel of satisfactory quality. To provide a structurally viable panel, the integrity of the wood strands after forming are of vital importance to produce a panel of consistent density. Specifically, the intersections between the front face 28 of the panel 12 and the perpendicular intersections between the lateral and longitudinal channels 14, 16, i.e., particularly in the corner regions at the channel transitions 18, create stress points during the three dimensional (3D) compression molding process as the strand matt, which is made of various layers of loose wooden stands, tends to separate, causing shear thinning at these corner points, resulting in inconsistent density and unsuitable quality. To avoid these quality issues, it is beneficial for all surface transitions 18, 46, 48, 50 to include adequate curvatures or radii to reduce this effect. It will be appreciated that the radius of curvature can be approximated by one or more facets between the surface transitions 18, 46, 48, 50.
The panel 12 described herein also improves over prior art panels by providing curvatures at surface transitions that are measurably larger the further the transition is spaced away from the front face 28 of the corrugated panel 12 which overcomes several issues, such as shear thinning of the strand mat, which would occur at sharp corner transitions. The panel 12 is devoid of shear sharp corners as mentioned above, and the group of channel transitions 18 between the longitudinal and lateral channels 14, 16 are also sized to increase relative to the proximity to the back face 30 of the panel 12. The group of proximal channel transitions 18′ within a plane that is closest to the front face 28 of the panel 12 have a radius of curvature that is less than the group of distal channel transitions 18″ within a plane that is closest to the back face 30. Furthermore, middle channel transitions 18″′ within a middle plane between the proximal and distal plane have a radius of curvature that is between the proximal channel transitions 46 and the distal channel transitions 48. Accordingly, as shown in detail in
As shown in
In each of the embodiments shown in
In an alternative embodiment not shown in the drawings, channel transitions 18 devoid of a sharp ninety degree (90°) corner can be achieved with faceted sections rather than a smooth curve at each channel transition 18 between the channels themselves, the proximal ends of the sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b and the front face 28 of the panel 12 and the distal ends of each sidewall 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b and the corresponding troughs 38, 40a-40d. In this embodiment, each sidewall 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b can include multiple faceted sections slightly angled relative to one another to collectively define the smooth channel transition without any sharp corner. The particular number of faceted sections is not intended to be limiting and will depend on the relative angle between the various facets and the overall size of the transition.
As shown in
In a primary aspect of the inventive wall panel 12 described herein according to the preferred embodiment, each sidewall 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b of each channel 14, 16 includes at least one step proximate to the front face 28.
In the alternative embodiment particularly shown in
Regardless of the step configuration, each step 20 includes an inner edge 70 and an outer edge 72 that are radially spaced by the step width. With the first step 20a positioned within each sidewall 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b, the sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b further include a first section 74 between the outer edge 72 of the first step 20a and the proximal end of the sidewall and a second section 76 between the inner edge 70 of the first step 20a and the distal end of the sidewall (as depicted in
As noted above, the preferred channel sidewalls slope from the front face 28 to the trough 38, 40a-d and it will be appreciated that the sidewall sections 74, 76 therefore slope between their respective ends. Given each channel has at least one step interrupting the sidewall sections 74, 76, the slope of the sections is not necessarily equal wherein the first section 74 could be shallower and the second section 76 steeper or vice versa. Alternatively, the slope of each section 74, 76 could be the same.
The function of the first step 20a can accommodate bracing strips 94 as shown in
In the preferred embodiment shown in
The primary function of the recessed indents 24 is to provide predetermined locations for various kinds of standard or specialty mounting brackets and/or clips used for electrical and plumbing fixtures to provide fixed, code compliant attachment points at the correct height or latitude, such as j-boxes, switches, receptacles, shower valves, shower thermostats, control valves, wall mounted showerheads, hand showers, corner stop valves, utility points for washers and dryers and wall mounted faucets or the like, as shown in
In the embodiment shown in
As discussed with reference to the transitions between the front face 28 and proximal ends of each channel above, the transition between the recessed section 26 in the front face 28 and the channel sidewalls are also devoid of a shear sharp corner and instead have a curved section with a curved corner.
Furthermore, the steps 20 within the sidewalls 42a, 42b, 44a, 44b of the channels 14, 16 continue within the recessed section 26 when aligned therewith.
The function of the recessed section 26 is to create improved access to the top or bottom plate, for attaching the plate or wall assembly to the floor, installing structural hold-downs, as shown in
Although the particular features discussed herein within each panel 12 are inventive, the wall system 10 made up of multiple panels is also inventive.
As indicated above, the present invention encompasses alternative configurations of wall panels 12 and assemblies that have various arrangements of the innovative channels. One assembly may have panels 12 that mirror each other, but it will be appreciated that the double-sided assemblies could have asymmetric corrugated panels and could have corrugated panels with complementary shapes without exactly mirroring each other. Of course, assemblies with panels that symmetrically mirror each other can come in a variety of different shapes. Additionally, for wall panel assemblies with asymmetric corrugated panels that have lateral and longitudinal channels 14, 16 on only one side of the panel assembly, adjacent wall panel assemblies can alternate the direction that they face so that components and other fixtures can be available on both sides of an internal wall.
Insulation within the channels could be made of various materials such as synthetic foams (polyurethane, polystyrene, or polyethylene), various mineral oil based foams, or a variation of plant fiber based products which could be bound through various glues or biological adhesion such as natural resins or mushroom based products, as well as blow-in insulation such as rockwool, fiberglass, or cellulose, recycled denim, sheep wool, hemp wool or wood fiber insulations, as well as cast hempcrete or other sustainable pre molded materials. The lightweight materials for the wall panel assembly can be installed to create a wall by one or two individuals, depending on the particular size of the panels being installed. According to another aspect of the invention described herein, panels are made of any strand-based material or longer plant fiber-based or any anisotropic natural materials are coated with an adhesive prior to being formed into a multi-layered strand mat, with overlapping strands that are oriented in varying directions. The preferred adhesives which hold the strands together are preferably Methylene Diphenyl Diisocyanate (monomeric MDI) and polymeric MDI (PMDI) specifically, because of its excellent properties to bond strands using smaller amounts of adhesive compared to other adhesive systems, as well as its superior strength and resistance to moisture exposure. Furthermore, PMDI is free of unhealthy formaldehyde emissions. Alternatively, Urea-Formaldehyde, Melamine-Formaldehyde, Melamine-Urea-Formaldehyde, Phenol-Formaldehyde, Phenol-Resorcinol-Formaldehyde (PRF), One-Component Polyurethanes (PURs) adhesives or a combination of adhesives can be used. Alternatively, also new renewable, bio-based and synthetic wood polymeric adhesives may be used to bond the wood-based strands, particles or wafers together.
This strand mat is multiple times thicker than the material thickness of the finished corrugated panel and customarily has a continuous thickness. It will be appreciated, that the strand mat or particle mat may have zones, where the mat thickness may vary and, that the pressed panel itself may also feature different regions with varying material thicknesses. Specifically, in areas which are in similar orientation but are not in the same plane as the front face 28 of the panel 12, the panel material thickness may increase, with increasing distance of said surface relative to the front face 28 of the panel 12, where the material thickness at front face 28 of the panel 12 might be slimmer than the material thickness at the back face 30 of the panel 12. Accordingly, the panels are organic-based composite structure that (is) maybe preformed before being pressed into a particular shape having the various inventive aspects described herein. It will be appreciated, that the panels could also be vacuum formed out of suitable thermoplastics, where the material thickness of the front face and the back face of the panel would be similar, but the material thickness of the sloped sidewalls would be less than the material thickness of the front most and rear most facing surfaces.
The embodiments were chosen and described to best explain the principles of the invention and its practical application to persons who are skilled in the art. As various modifications could be made to the exemplary embodiments, as described above with reference to the corresponding illustrations, without departing from the scope of the invention, it is intended that all matter contained in the foregoing description and shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative rather than limiting. For example, although the panels have been described as they would be used as part of a wall system, it will be appreciated that the panels are structural and can be generally referred to as building panels and that they could also be used as floor panels. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present invention should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims appended hereto and their equivalents.
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