To study suitability of the emerging ultralightweight carbon foams in load-carrying structures, the state-of-the-art carbon foams were evaluated as core material in a sandwich construction. The sandwich beams with hole-drilled carbon foam cores were fabricated and tested under a static four-point bending load for an efficient weight reduction scheme for the sandwich structures. Effective shear moduli of the hole-drilled carbon foam core calculated by a variational method and a numerical finite element method was in good agreement with experimental data. From the modulus point of view, the hole-drilling with the high-density foams is a better way of achieving the weight reduction in the sandwich construction than using the low-density foams. If the materials were removed in the noncritically loaded area, the weight reduction can be achieved without sacrificing much strength property of the core materials as well.
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