Design of sandwich structures for concentrated loading

While sandwich construction offers well-known advantages for high stiffness with light weight, the problem of designing the sandwich structure to withstand localized loading, such as from accidental impact, remains an important problem. This problem is more difficult with lower stiffness cores, such as expanded foam. In the present study, experiments have been carried out on foam core sandwich beams with carbon/epoxy faces, under conditions of concentrated loading. The variables considered were the density of the foam and the relative thickness of the core. The common failure modes of sandwich structures were observed, including core failure in compression and shear, delamination, and fiber failure in the faces. These failure modes were systematically related to the test variables by means of a detailed stress analysis of the specimen, and a consideration of the failure properties of the constituent materials. The loading is characterized by localized high stress and strain concentrations that are not predicted in first-order shear deformation sandwich beam theory. The three-dimensional elasticity solution of Pagano was used to obtain the stress distributions. The strength prediction requires a detailed consideration of the localized nature of the loading, including the effects of strain gradients in the faces. The results show that failure modes and load levels can be predicted for sandwich structures under concentrated loading, but that accurate predictions require a consideration of the details of the concentrated loading. The results have a direct application in predicting the ability of sandwich structures to withstand localized loading such as from accidental impact.