An enriched 1D finite element for the buckling analysis of sandwich beam-columns

摘要

Sandwich constructions have been widely used during the last few decades in various practical applications, especially thanks to the attractive compromise between a lightweight and high mechanical properties. Nevertheless, despite the advances achieved to date, buckling still remains a major failure mode for sandwich materials which often fatally leads to collapse. Recently, one of the authors derived closed-form analytical solutions for the buckling analysis of sandwich beam-columns under compression or pure bending. These solutions are based on a specific hybrid formulation where the faces are represented by Euler-Bernoulli beams and the core layer is described as a 2D continuous medium. When considering more complex loadings or non-trivial boundary conditions, closed-form solutions are no more available and one must resort to numerical models. Instead of using a 2D computationally expensive model, the present paper aims at developing an original enriched beam finite element. It is based on the previous analytical formulation, insofar as the skin layers are modeled by Timoshenko beams whereas the displacement fields in the core layer are described by means of hyperbolic functions, in accordance with the modal displacement fields obtained analytically. By using this 1D finite element, linearized buckling analyses are performed for various loading cases, whose results are confronted to either analytical or numerical reference solutions, for validation purposes.