• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.8-13
• /
• 2018

The light weight composite materials have been replacing in high performance structures. The object of this study is to examine the effects of the initial crack location about a delamination in a PVC foam cored sandwich composite that is used for the strength improvement of structures. The initial crack location and fiber laminates thickness were changed with several types. The MMB specimen was used for evaluating the fracture toughness and crack behaviors. The material used in the experiment is a commercial twill carbon prepreg in CFRP material and Airex in PVC foam core. Sandwich laminate composites are composed by PVC foam core layer between CFRP face sheets. The face sheets were fabricated as 2 types of 5 and 8 plies. The initial cracks were located in a PVC form core and the interface of upper CFRP sheet. From the results, the crack initiation was affected with the location of the initial crack inserted in the PVC foam core. Among them, the initial crack at 1/3 of the upper part of the PVC foam core was the most rapid progression. And the critical energy release rate was $0.40kJ/m^2$, which is the lowest value when the initial crack was inserted into the interface between a PVC foam core and CFRP laminated with 5 plies. Meanwhile, the highest value of $1.27kJ/m^2$ was obtained when the initial crack was located at the center line in case of the 8 plies.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.715-726
• /
• 2010

In this paper, a comparative study of metallic and non-metallic stiffened plates under a lateral pressure load is performed using conventional statistically determinate and SQP(Sequential Quadratic Programming) optimisation approaches. Initially, a metallic flat-bar stiffened plate is exemplified from the superstructure of a marine vessel and, subsequently, its structural topology is varied as hat-section stiffened FRP(Fibre Reinforced Plastics) single skin plates and monocoque FRP sandwich plates having a PVC foam core. These proposed structural alternatives are analysed using elastic closed-form solutions and SQP optimisation method under stress and deflection limits obtained from practice to calculate and optimise geometry dimensions and weights. Results obtained from the comparative study provide useful information for marine designers especially at the preliminary design stage where various building materials and structural configurations are dealt with.