Buckling of sandwich panels with different boundary conditions — A comparison between FE-analysis and analytical solutions

Buckling loads of sandwich panels obtained by analytical calculations and FE-analysis are compared. Approximate buckling loads for panels with different boundary conditions have been derived using an energy method with deflection functions satisfying the boundary conditions. The comparison shows good agreement for panels with simply supported edges. In other cases the agreement is acceptable for panels with a length/ breadth ratio of 1 or greater. The approximate solutions can thus be used to estimate buckling loads of panels when designing sandwich structures.