Experimental study of the medium velocity impact response of sandwich panels with different cores

Abstract

The impact response of sandwich panels is not only dependent on the facesheet but also on the core material. This paper compares the dynamic response of sandwich panels with different core materials when subjected to medium velocity impacts. The sandwich panels were made of aluminium facesheets with five different cores, viz., low density balsa wood, high density balsa wood, cork, polypropylene honeycomb, and polystyrene foam. All the specimens were impacted by an instrumented projectile with a hemispherical steel head at three impact energies of 43, 85 and 120 J. An accelerometer attached to the projectile and a high speed camera were used to collect data and record the impact process. 3D scanning technique was used to measure the deformation of front and back faces after impact. The impact properties of the sandwich panels with the five different cores were compared in terms of contact force, energy absorption, depth of indentation, overall bending deflection, etc. Post-mortem sectioning was conducted to examine the impact induced failures such as facesheet rupture, crush of core material, and debonding between facesheet and core. Finite element modelling was also carried out to elucidate the observed experimental results and further understand the effect of core material.

Low velocity failure and integrity assessment of foam core sandwich panels

“…Faces are generally made of metal alloys [1], fiber reinforced composites [2] or fiber metal laminates [3] and are responsible for carrying the transverse loads or bending moments. The core of sandwich structures comprises of honeycombs [4], corrugated materials [5], polymeric/metallic foams [6,7], lattices [8] or balsa wood [9] and is responsible for absorbing the impact energy by local plastic deformation whilst still offering enough overall support to prevent high local bending strains in the facesheets. A comprehensive review of the current trends in the research and applications of sandwich structures is done by Birman and Kardomateas, [10].…”

Experimental Optimization of Effective Parameters of Sandwich Panels With Aluminum Foam Core Under Low Velocity Impact

“…They found that plates with non-orthogonal layout had better loading performance. Cheng et al [4] investigated the behavior of sandwich composite plates with aluminum foam core under quasi-static in uence and observed the behavior of samples in three stages of elastic, yield and failure. As the epoxy resin layer increased, the amount of energy absorbed increased.…”

Numerical modeling of impact on wood-based sandwich structures

“…The most common wood studied in sandwich composites under impact is balsa but it is mostly investigated from an experimental point of view or for comparison purposes, for example [27][28][29]. However, several authors have focused more precisely on the modeling of the crushing of wood.…”