Indentation of rigidly supported sandwich beams with core gradation

摘要

Highlights?Indentation behaviour of sandwich beams with core gradation is investigated under concentrated loading.?Effects of core layer arrangements on initial failure load are investigated.?Effects of core thickness and core strength ratios on initial failure load are studied.AbstractSandwich structures with optimized foam core have received considerable attention. The objective of this study is to investigate the indentation of sandwich beams with a two-layer core gradation. An analytical model is developed to predict the large indentation deflections of sandwich beams with two-layer metal foam cores subjected to the concentrated loading. Analytical predictions are compared with finite element simulations and good agreement is obtained. The effects of face sheet strength, core strength, and thickness ratio on the initial failure load of sandwich beams with core gradation are discussed in detail. The results show that through variation of the core thickness ratio and core strength ratio, the failure mode of sandwich beams could be controlled. Meanwhile, the load-carrying and energy absorption capacity of the sandwich beams can also be improved. This work is useful in the core design of the sandwich structures.Graphical abstractDiagrammatic sketch of indentation of sandwich structures with core gradient, and normalized failure load surface versus core thickness ratioa?=?C1/C2and core strength ratio ??=?σ1/σ2 as well as normalized failure load surface versus core thickness ratioa?=?C1/C2and face sheet strengthσ?. Configuration 1 and Configuration 2 are with changed positions of two foam core layer.Display Omitted]]>