PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF WEB-CORE COMPOSITE SANDWICH PANELS

This paper gives design analysis procedures for determining the mechanical performance of web-core composite sandwich materials and compares predicted properties with mechanical tests on braid-cored composite panels. Design formulae are derived for panel material properties such as flexural rigidity, bending moment at failure, shear stiffness and strength, in terms of web geometry, skin thickness and skin and core material properties. Mechanical tests were carried out on panels with glass fabric/epoxy skins and braided glass fibre/epoxy web cores, loaded both along and transverse to the web direction, and showed reasonable agreement with predicted panel properties. © 1990.