Failure behaviour of honeycomb sandwich corner joints and inserts

In nearly all sandwich constructions certain types of joints have to be used for assembly, but little is known about their failure behaviour. This paper deals with the investigation of the mechanical behaviour of three different corner joints as a right-angled connection of two sandwich panels and of two different potted inserts as a localised load introduction in Nomex^® honeycomb sandwich structures with glass fibre-reinforced composite skins. For this purpose, experimental test series were conducted including shear tests and bending tests of the corner joints and pull-out as well as shear-out tests of the threaded inserts. The failure mechanisms and sequences are described for each load case and the influence of the different designs and of the loading rate is discussed. Based on these characteristics, finite element simulation models were developed in LS-DYNA, which are able to represent the respective failure behaviours.