Experimental characterization, analytical and numerical investigations of metal/polymer/metal sandwich composites - Part 1: Deep drawing

Hybrid sandwich composites are of special interest for engineering applications requiring control of fuel consumption rate. Together with their lightweight potential, composite laminates improve the damping capacity, thermal insulation and specific stiffness. Numerous challenges exist regarding production, forming, joining, and recycling of such materials. In the present work, several configurations of three-layered sandwich composite made of metal skin and polymer core are investigated. Experimental tests at room temperature are carried out for mechanically characterizing the constituting materials. Moreover, the effect of the skin/core layer thicknesses and their configuration on the forming potential under deep drawing conditions is presented, together with numerical aspects using finite elements. Additionally, the study of the strain field distribution is carried out by means of metallographic and digital image correlation methods. A good agreement was derived regarding predicting the forming forces, the strain field distribution and thickness reduction results determined by experimental, analytical and numerical methods.