Experimental and numerical studies on multi-layered corrugated sandwich panels under crushing loading

The multi-layered corrugated sandwich panels are investigated by experimental studies and numerical simulations under the quasi-static crushing loading in this study. The structures are made up of trapezoidal aluminum cores and aluminum alloy sheets. Three different configurations of corrugated sandwich panels were studied, which are the regularly-arranged, stagger-arranged and cross-arranged (0 degrees/90 degrees). The layers of corrugated sandwich panels vary from two to six. The corrugated cores were fabricated by a self-made mould and then bonded to interlayer and face sheets so as to produce different specimens. The force-displacement curves of these panels were obtained from the experimental tests; and the energy absorption mechanism were studied for each panels. It was found that the sandwich configuration and number of layers played an important role in the failure mechanism and energy absorption. The finite element models were also created to correlate the experimental results. It was found that the numerical and experimental force-displacement curves agreed well with each other. The results provided us with the data and guideline for further studies on crashworthiness optimization of the multi-layered corrugated sandwich panels. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.