Energy Absorption of Sandwich Panels with Composite-Reinforced Foam Core

Abstract

Specimens with through-the-thickness reinforcement are manufactured and tested under uniaxial quasistatic loading to determine the effect of the reinforcement on the energy absorption characteristics. The sandwich structures are nominally 48 or 68mm by 68mm in area and varied from 13 to 51mm in thickness. Either three or four strips of unidirectional [02] graphite/epoxy served as the throughthethickness reinforcement. In addition, various other cores are tested in a similar fashion and compared against the reinforced core specimens. The reinforcement greatly increased the crushing initiation load, and the energy absorption was greatly enhanced even when normalized by the overall weight of the altered cores.

Keywords

crashworthiness crushing energy management reinforced core

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Farley, G.L. and Jones, R.M. (1989). Energy-Absorption Capability of Composite Tubes and Beams, NASA TM 10134.

Sen, J.K. and Dremann, C.C. (1985). Design Development Tests for Composite Crashworthy Helicopter Fuselage , SAMPE Quarterly, 17(1): 29–39 .

Coltman, J.W. (1990). Development of Categorized Crashworthiness Design Criteria for U.S. Army Aircraft, USAAVSCOM, TR 90-D-16.

Farley, G.L. (1983). Energy Absorption of Composite Materials , Journal of Composite Materials, 17(5): 267–279 .

Fleming, D.C. and Vizzini, A.J. (1992). The Effect of Side Loads on the Energy Absorption of Composite Structures , Journal of Composite Materials, 26(4): 486–499 .

Knack, J.L. and Vizzini, A.J. (October 2001). Energy Absorption of Truncated Kevlar Epoxy Cones Under Off-Axis Loads , Journal of Composites Technology and Research, 23(4): 247–253 .

Fleming, D.C. and Vizzini, A.J. (July 1996). Off-Axis Energy Absorption Characterization of Composites for Crashworthy Rotorcraft Design , Journal of the American Helicopter Society, 41(3): 239–246 .

Chen, J. and Hong, E. (1999). Energy Absorption of Edge-Loaded Sandwich Structures under Low-Velocity Impact , In: Proceedings of the American Society for Composites Fourteenth Technical Conference, Sept. 1999, Fairborn, OH, pp. 673–682 .

Johnson, N.L. , Browne, A.L. , Houston, D.Q. and Lalik, L. (1999). ACC Generic Tube Crush Program: Comparison of Axial Crush RTM and SRIM Tubes , In: Proceedings of the American Society for Composites Fourteenth Technical Conference, Sept. 1999, Fairborn, OH, pp. 641–650 .

10.

Sen, J.K. and Dremann, C.C. (Oct. 1985). Design Development Tests for Composite Crashworthy Helicopter Fuselage , SAMPE Quarterly, 17(1).

11.

Cronkhite, J.D. (1986). Design of Airframe Structures for Crash Impact , In: Proceedings of the AHS National Specialists' Meeting on Crashworthy Design of Rotorcraft, Apr. 1986, Atlanta, GA.

12.

Vaidya, U.K. , Kumar, P. , Hosur, M.V. , Kamath, M.V. , Mahfuz, H. and Jeelani, S. (1998). Low Velocity and High Strain Rate Impact of Pin Reinforced Foam Core Sandwich Composites , In: Proceedings of the Eighth Japan-U.S. Conference on Composite Materials, Sept. 1998, Baltimore, MD, pp. 721–729 .

13.

Hasebe, R.S. and Sun, C.T. (Jan. 2000). Performance of Sandwich Structures with Composite Reinforced Core , Journal of Sandwich Structures and Materials, 2: 75–100 .