An equivalent material formulation for sinusoidal corrugated cores of structural sandwich panels

Energy-based strut stress analysis of 3D lattice cores in sandwich panels

A passive acoustic method is developed for material damage detection and location in homogeneous thin metallic sheets and sandwich panels using non-contact acoustic transmission measurements. Theoretical models of a flat sheet and sandwich panel are developed to describe the effects of global material damage due to density, modulus, or thickness changes on backplane radiated sound pressure level distributions. To describe the effects of local material damage, a two-dimensional, three-segment stepped beam model is developed. It is shown that increases in transmitted sound energy at high frequencies occur behind a damaged material component that exhibits changes in thickness or other geometric or material property. Experiments on a baffled homogeneous sheet subjected to broadband acoustic energy show that transmitted intensity measurements with non-contact probes can be used to identify and locate material defects in the sheet. Material damage is most readily identified where transmitted sound intensity is highest in the resonant frequency range of the panel.

7 - Fire behavior of sandwich panels with different cores

Dynamic response of square sandwich panels with stagger-layered honeycomb cores under intensive near-field air blast loading

Strands produced from small-diameter timbers of lodgepole and ponderosa pine were used to fabricate a composite sandwich structure as a replacement for traditional building envelope materials, such as roofing. It is beneficial to develop models that are verified to predict the behavior of these sandwich structures under typical service loads. When used for building envelopes, these structural panels are subjected to bending due to wind, snow, live, and dead loads during their service life. The objective of this study was to develop a theoretical and a finite element (FE) model to evaluate the elastic bending behavior of the wood-strand composite sandwich panel with a biaxial corrugated core. The effect of shear deformation was shown to be negligible by applying two theoretical models, the Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theories. Tensile tests were conducted to obtain the material properties as inputs into the models. Predicted bending stiffness of the sandwich panels using Euler-Bernoulli, Timoshenko, and FE models differed from the experimental results by 3.6%, 5.2%, and 6.5%, respectively. Using FE and theoretical models, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to explore the effect of change in bending stiffness due to intrinsic variation in material properties of the wood composite material.

Some theoretical considerations on the dynamic response of sandwich structures under impulsive loading

This paper presents a computational study for the structural response of blast loaded metallic sandwich panels, with the emphasis placed on their failure behaviours. The fully-clamped panels are square, and the honeycomb core and skins are made of the same aluminium alloy. A material model considering strain and strain rate hardening effects is used and the blast load is idealised as either a uniform or localised pressure over a short duration. The deformation/failure procedure and modes of the sandwich panels are identified and analysed. In the uniform loading condition, the effect of core density and face-sheets thicknesses is analysed. Likewise, the influence of pulse shape on the failure modes is investigated by deriving a pressure-impulse (P-I) diagram. For localised loading, a comparative study is carried out to assess the blast resistant behaviours of three types of structures: sandwich panel with honeycomb core, two face-sheets with air core and monolithic plate, in terms of their permanent deflections and damage degrees. The finding of this research provides a valuable insight into the engineering design of sandwich constructions against air blast loads.

For the first time, an accurate analytical solution, based on coupled three-dimensional (3D) piezoelasticity equations, is presented for free vibration analysis of the angle-ply elastic and piezoelectric flat laminated panels under arbitrary boundary conditions. The present analytical solution is applicable to composite, sandwich and hybrid panels having arbitrary angle-ply lay-up, material properties, and boundary conditions. The modified Hamiltons principle approach has been applied to derive the weak form of governing equations where stresses, displacements, electric potential, and electric displacement field variables are considered as primary variables. Thereafter, multi-term multi-field extended Kantorovich approach (MMEKM) is employed to transform the governing equation into two sets of algebraic-ordinary differential equations (ODEs), one along in-plane (x) and other along the thickness (z) direction, respectively. These ODEs are solved in closed-form manner, which ensures the same order of accuracy for all the variables (stresses, displacements, and electric variables) by satisfying the boundary and continuity equations in exact manners. A robust algorithm is developed for extracting the natural frequencies and mode shapes. The numerical results are reported for various configurations such as elastic panels, sandwich panels and piezoelectric panels under different sets of boundary conditions. The effect of ply-angle and thickness to span ratio (s) on the dynamic behavior of the panels are also investigated. The presented 3D analytical solution will be helpful in the assessment of various 1D theories and numerical methods.

The employment of lightweight structures is one of the most important goals in various industries. The lightweight sandwich panel is an excellent energy absorber and also a perfect way for decreasing the risk of impact. In this paper, a numerical study of high-velocity impact on honeycomb sandwich panels reinforced with polymer foam was performed. The results of numerical simulation are compared with the experimental findings. The numerical modeling of high-velocity penetration process was carried out using nonlinear explicit finite-element code, LS-DYNA. The aluminum honeycomb structure, unfilled honeycomb sandwich panel, and the sandwich panels filled with three types of polyurethane foam (foam 1: 56.94, foam 2: 108.65, and foam 3: 137.13 kg/m3) were investigated to demonstrate damage modes, ballistic limit velocity, absorbed energy, and specific energy absorption (SEA) capacity. The numerical ballistic limit velocity of sandwich panels, filled with three types of foam, was more than that of a bare honeycomb core and unfilled sandwich panel. In addition, the numerical results showed that the sandwich panel filled with the highest density foam could increase the strength of sandwich panel and the numerical specific energy absorption of this structure was 23% more than that of unfilled. Finally, the numerical results were in good agreement with experimental findings.

Thermal buckling response of laminated and sandwich plates using refined 2-D models

The use of polymeric and metallic foam sandwich panels in naval, aerospace, railway and automotive constructions is rapidly growing in the recent years because of technological improvements in manufacturing processes. However, it is still difficult to establish a direct relationship between the mechanical properties possessed by the panel and the specific manufacturing process. Mechanisms behind panel deformation, crack growth, fracture initiation and propagation still are not completely understood and therefore are intensively studied. In particular, structural behavior under compression is a critical issue also in view of the lack of official standards on foam core sandwich panels. This work aims at studying mechanical properties of high density polyethylene foam core sandwich panels produced by rotational molding. These panels can be built without using adhesives as the polyethylene foam grows inside mold and then adheres to facesheets while material still is at high temperature. In the present study, polyethylene foam panels of different thickness are tested under edgewise compression loading. The resulting out-of-plane deformation is then monitored in detail with a projection moire setup including two projectors and one camera.

Experimental and numerical investigation of damage in multilayer sandwich panels with square and trapezoidal corrugated cores under quasi-static three-point bending

The sandwich panel structures with aluminum foam core and metal surfaces have light weight with high performance in dispersing energy. This has led to their widespread use in the absorption of energy. The cell structure of foam core is subjected to plastic deformation in the constant tension level that absorbs a lot of kinetic energy before destruction of the structure. In this research, by making samples of aluminum foam core sandwich panels with aluminum surfaces, experimental tests of low velocity impact by a drop machine are performed for different velocities and weights of projectile on samples of sandwich panels with aluminum foam core with relative density of 18%, 23%, and 27%. The output of device is acceleration‐time diagram which is shown by an accelerometer located on the projectile. From the experimental tests, the effect of weight, velocity and energy of the projectile and density of the foam on the global deformation, and energy decrease rate of projectile have been studied. The results of the experimental testes show that by increasing the density of aluminum foam, the overall impression is reduced and the slop of energy loss of projectile increases. Also by increasing the velocity of the projectile, the energy loss increases. Introduction. Sandwich panels with composite face sheets and foam core are widely used in lightweight constructions, especially in aerospace industries due to their advantages over the conventional structural constructions, such as high specific strengths and stiffness and good weight saving [1]. An early study [2] has indicated that using composite materials instead of aluminium for the face sheets results in higher performance and lower weight. In the meanwhile, as a new multi-functional engineering material, aluminium foam has many useful properties such as low density, high specific stiffness, good impact resistance, high energy absorption capacity, easy to manufacture into complex shape, and good erosion resistance [3, 4], so it is usually used as core material of sandwich panels. However, it has also been found that composite sandwich panels are susceptible to impact damage caused by runway debris, hailstones, dropped tools and so on [2]. The resulting impact damage to the sandwich panel ranges from face sheet indentation to complete perforation, with the strength and reliability of the structures dramatically affected. Unlike for their solid metallic counterparts, making predictions of the effects of low-velocity impact damage are difficult and are still relatively immature. Hence, the behaviour of sandwich structures with aluminium foam core under low-velocity impact has received increasing attention.

The Sandwich Panel Technologies including Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) can be used to replace the conventional wooden-frame construction method. The main purpose of this Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between UT-Battelle, LLC and SGI Venture, Inc. was to design a novel high R-value type of metal sandwich panelized technology. This CRADA project report presents design concept discussion and numerical analysis results from thermal performance study of this new building envelope system. The main objective of this work was to develop a basic concept of a new generation of wall panel technologies which will have R-value over R-20 will use thermal mass to improve energy performance in cooling dominated climates and will be 100% termite resistant. The main advantages of using sandwich panels are as follows: (1) better energy saving structural panels with high and uniform overall wall R-value across the elevation that could not be achieved in traditional walls; and (2) reducing the use of raw materials or need for virgin lumber. For better utilization of these Sandwich panels, engineers need to have a thorough understanding of the actual performance of the panels and system. Detailed analysis and study on the capacities and deformation of individual panels and its assembly have to be performed to achieve that goal. The major project activity was to conduct structural analysis of the stresses, strains, load capacities, and deformations of individual sandwich components under various load cases. The analysis simulated the actual loading conditions of the regular residential building and used actual material properties of the steel facings and foam.

Sandwich panels with auxetic lattice cores confined between metallic facets are proposed for localised impact resistance applications. Their performance under localised impact is numerically studied, considering the rate-dependent effects. The behaviour of the composite structure material at high strain rates is modelled with the Johnson-Cook model. Parametric analyses are conducted to assess the performance of different designs of the hybrid composite structures. The results are compared with monolithic panels of equivalent areal mass and material in terms of deformations and plastic energy dissipation. Design parameters considered for the parametric analyses include the auxetic unit cell effective Poisson’s ratio, thickness of the facet, material properties and radius of the unit cell’s struts. Significant reduction in computational time is achieved by modelling a quarter of the panel, with shell elements for facets and beam elements for the auxetic core. With projectile impacts up to 200 m/s, the auxetic composite panels are found to be able to absorb a similar amount of energy through plastic deformation, while the maximum back facet displacements are reduced up to 56% due to localised densification and plastic deformation of the auxetic core.