Progressive Damage Modeling of Sandwich Composites under Edgewise Compression

Abstract

Composite sandwich structures offer several advantages over conventional structural materials such as lightweight, high bending and torsional stiffness, superior thermal insulation and excellent acoustic damping. Failure in sandwich structures can occur in the form of core crushing and shear, facesheet failure and delamination. Numerical simulation is a valuable tool by which the mechanical behavior of sandwich composites can be estimated in a cost-effective manner. In the current work, a three dimensional nonlinear finite element model was built to describe sandwich composite behavior under edgewise compression. Hashin's failure criteria was used to model facesheet failure and a cohesive zone model was used to predict delamination at the core-facesheet interface. Sandwich composites were manufactured using carbon/epoxy prepregs and aluminum honeycomb, to validate predictions of the numerical model. Load carrying capacity predicted by the numerical simulation was found to be in good agreement with experimental findings. Such numerical models can be used for design purposes to determine the influence of sandwich components on the behavior of the sandwich structure.

Meeting Name

Composites and Advanced Materials Expo 2016, CAMX 2016 (2016: Sep. 26-29, Anaheim, CA)

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Center/Lab(s)

Intelligent Systems Center

Keywords and Phrases

Carbon; Cost effectiveness; Delamination; Finite element method; Numerical models; Sandwich structures; Thermal insulation; Cohesive zone model; Composite sandwich structure; Edgewise compression; Mechanical behavior; Progressive damage; Sandwich composites; Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model; Torsional stiffness; Structural design

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2016 The Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Sep 2016

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