• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.289-306
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• 2003

A series of tests was conducted to study the behaviour of steel-composite sandwich beams under low velocity hard impact. Damage characteristic and performance of sandwich beams with different spacing of shear connector were evaluated under impact loading. Thin steel plates were used as top and bottom skins of the sandwich beams and plain concrete was used as the core material. Shear connectors were provided by welding of angle sections on steel plates. The sandwich beams were impacted at their midpoint by a hemi-spherical nose shaped projectile dropped from various heights. Strains on steel plates were measured to study the effects of impact velocity or impact momentum on the performance of sandwich beams. Spacing of shear connectors is found to have significant effects on the impact response of the beams.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.391-403
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• 2024

The flexural behavior of composite sandwich wall panels with different thicknesses, numbers of holes, and hole forms, and arrangement form of longitudinal steel bar (uniform type and concealed-beam type) are investigated. A total of twelve composite sandwich wall panels are prepared, utilizing modified polystyrene particles mixed with foam concrete for the flexural performance test. The failure pattern of the composite sandwich wall panels is influenced by the extruded polystyrene panel (XPS) panel thickness and the reinforcement ratio in combination, resulting in both flexural and shear failure modes. Increasing the XPS panel thickness causes the specimens to transition from flexural failure to shear failure. An increase in the reinforcement ratio leads to the transition from flexural failure to shear failure. The hole form on the XPS panel and the steel bar arrangement form affect the loading behavior of the specimens. Plum-arrangement hole form specimens exhibit lower steel bar strain and deflection compared to linear-arrangement hole form specimens. Additionally, specimens with concealed beam-type steel bar display lower steel bar strain and deflection than uniform-type steel bar specimens. However, the hole form and steel bar arrangement form have a limited impact on the ultimate load. Theoretical formulas for cracking load are provided for both fully composite and non-composite states. When compared to the experimental values, it is observed that the cracking load of the specimens with XPS panels closely matches the calculations for the non-composite state. An accurate prediction model for the ultimate load of fully composite wall panels is developed. These findings offer valuable insights into the behavior of composite sandwich wall panels and provide a basis for predicting their performance under various design factors and conditions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.337-346
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• 2017

Sandwich shells made of composite materials are the main focus on recent literature parallel to the requirements of industry. They are commonly chosen for the modern engineering applications which require moderate strength to weight ratio without dependence on conventional manufacturing techniques. The investigations on hyperbolic paraboloidal formed sandwich composite shells are limited in the literature contrary to shells that have a number of studies, consisting of doubly curved surfaces, arbitrary boundaries and laminations. Because of the lack of contributive data in the literature, the aim of this study is to present the effects of curvature on hyperbolic paraboloidal formed, layered sandwich composite surfaces that have arbitrary boundary conditions. Analytical solution methodology for the analyses of stresses and deformations is based on Third Order Shear Deformation Theory (TSDT). Double Fourier series, which are specialized for boundary discontinuity, are used to solve highly coupled linear partial differential equations. Numerical solutions showing the effects of shell geometry are presented to provide benchmark results.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.657-663
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• 2005

Recently, weight reduction of vehicles has been of great interest, and consequently the use of composite materials in the automotive industry is increasing every year. Composite sandwich panels which consist of two skins and core materials are replacing steels in automotive floor and door. The substitution of one material for another is accompanied by change of joining method, so that adhesive bonding has been popularly used for joining method of composite materials. In the case of adhesive bonding of composite materials, there could be loss in the joint strength by delamination of two faceplates or cracking on faceplate. Thus, it is necessary to prevent loss in the joint strength by designing the joint geometry. In the present paper, adhesive bonding of aluminum sandwich sheet was tried. For understanding joint behavior, studies on stresses in the single lap joint were reviewed and failure modes of composite material were analyzed. Strength tests on the single lap joint consisting of aluminum sandwich sheet and steel were performed and variation of the joint strength with the joint configuration was shown. Based on these results, design guide of adhesive bonding in aluminum sandwich sheet was suggested.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.135-138
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• 2003

Recently, sandwich structures have been widely employed in load bearing structures due to their high specific stiffness and high specific strength. Some sandwich structures are subjected to not only static loads but also impact loads which might induce failure of structures at far less load than expected. Since sandwich structures can fail in various modes, estimation of the impact energy absorption is difficult. In this work, the impact failure modes and the impact energy absorption characteristics of the sandwich beams were predicted by the FE analysis and confirmed by the impact test. From the analytic and experimental results, the impact failure mode map was constructed with respect to non-dimensional parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.10 no.2 s.39
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• pp.201-210
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• 2007

Sandwich composites made of glass fabric epoxy facesheets with aluminum honeycomb core or balsa core is considered for the structural design of bodyshell of a Korean Low Floor Bus. Initially, in order to select the optimal facesheet and core materials in design stage, the flexural response of a sandwich composite is a critical importance. In this study, theoretical formula which could easily and quickly evaluate and obtain the flexural responses such as deflection and flexural stiffness of a sandwich composite subjected to external load was established. This theory could calculate the flexural responses of sandwich composites with narrow as well as wide width and with facesheets of unequal thickness, and also distinguish between the bending and shear effects of deflection. Finite element analysis using ANSYS V10.0 was used to offer the best elements for real sandwich composites, and flexural test according to ASTM C393 was conducted to compare with the results of theoretical formula and finite element analysis. The results show that the flexural responses of sandwich composites using proposed theoretical formula is in good agreement with those of experiment and finite element method.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2014

PURPOSES : The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate to the practicing engineers, how to apply the advanced composite materials theory to the road structures. For general construction material used, there is certain theoretical limit in sizes. For super road structure construction, the reduction in panel weight is the first step to take in order to break such size limits. METHODS : For a typical road structures panel, both concrete and advanced composite sandwich panels are considered. The concrete panel is treated as a special orthotropic plate. RESULTS : All types of advanced composite sandwich panels are considered as a self-weights less than one tenth of that of concrete panel. The concrete panel is treated as a special orthotropic plate to obtain more accurate result. CONCLUSIONS : Advanced composite sandwich panels are considered as a self-weights less than one tenth (10%) of that of concrete panel, with deflections less than that of the concrete panel. This conclusion gives good guide line for design of the light weight of road structures.

• Composites Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2011

In this paper, as a basic research to apply the composite sandwich to underwater vehicle, the manufacturing, analysis and test methods, and weight saving effect of a composite sandwich cylinder under external pressure were studied. A two-step manufacturing method to prevent the wrinkling of the sandwich cylinder face was proposed and the three cylinders were made and tested. Finite element results based on the shell and solid model using MSC.Nastran were compared with test results. The comparison showed that the linear finite element analysis using the shell and solid elements can predict the buckling pressure of the sandwich cylinder with approximately 3% difference. The parametric study of the filament wound cylinders revealed that the composite sandwich can reduce the weight of the cylinder more than 30% compared with the filament wound cylinder supporting the same pressure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.491-504
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• 2018

Because of sandwich structures with low weight and high stiffness have much usage in various industries such as civil and aerospace engineering, in this article, buckling and free vibration analyses of coupled micro composite sandwich plates are investigated based on sinusoidal shear deformation (SSDT) and most general strain gradient theories (MGSGT). It is assumed that the sandwich structure rested on an orthotropic elastic foundation and make of four composite face sheets with temperature-dependent material properties that they reinforced by carbon and boron nitride nanotubes and two flexible transversely orthotropic cores. Mathematical formulation is presented using Hamilton's principle and governing equations of motions are derived based on energy approach and applying variation method for simply supported edges under electro-magneto-thermo-mechanical, axial buckling and pre-stresses loadings. In order to predict the effects of various parameters such as material length scale parameter, length to width ratio, length to thickness ratio, thickness of face sheets to core thickness ratio, nanotubes volume fraction, pre-stress load and orthotropic elastic medium on the natural frequencies and critical buckling load of double-bonded micro composite sandwich plates. It is found that orthotropic elastic medium has a special role on the system stability and increasing Winkler and Pasternak constants lead to enhance the natural frequency and critical buckling load of micro plates, while decrease natural frequency and critical buckling load with increasing temperature changes. Also, it is showed that pre-stresses due to help the axial buckling load causes that delay the buckling phenomenon. Moreover, it is concluded that the sandwich structures with orthotropic cores have high stiffness, but because they are not economical, thus it is necessary the sandwich plates reinforce by carbon or boron nitride nanotubes specially, because these nanotubes have important thermal and mechanical properties in comparison of the other reinforcement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.149-159
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• 2018

Thermo-mechanical buckling of sandwich beams with a stiff core and face sheets made of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) within the framework of Timoshenko beam theory is presented. The material properties of FG-CNTRC are supposed to vary continuously in the thickness direction and are estimated through the rule of mixture. Also the properties of these materials should be considered temperature dependent. The governing equations and boundary conditions are derived by using Hamilton's principle and solved using an efficient technique called the Differential Transform Method (DTM) to achieve the critical buckling of the sandwich beam in uniform thermal environment. A detailed parametric study is guided to investigate the effects of carbon nanotube volume fraction, slenderness ratio, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio, and clamped-clamped, simply-simply and clamped-simply end supports on the critical buckling behavior of sandwich beams with FG-CNTRC face sheets. Numerical results for comparison of sandwich beams with uniformly distributed carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (UD-CNTRC) face sheets with those with FG-CNTRC face sheets are also presented.