• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.327-335
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• 2017

To gain more knowledge of aluminum foam sandwich structure and promote the engineering application, aluminum foam sandwich consisting of 7050 matrix aluminum foam core and 304 stainless steel face-sheets was studied under three-point bending by WDW-T100 electronic universal tensile testing machine in this work. Results showed that when aluminum foam core was reinforced by 304 steel face-sheets, its load carrying capacity improved dramatically. The maximum load of AFS in three-point bending increased with the foam core density or face-sheet thickness monotonically. And also when foam core was reinforced by 304 steel panels, the energy absorption ability of foam came into play effectively. There was a clear plastic platform in the load-displacement curve of AFS in three-point bending. No crack of 304 steel happened in the present tests. Two collapse modes appeared, mode A comprised plastic hinge formation at the mid-span of the sandwich beam, with shear yielding of the core. Mode B consisted of plastic hinge formation both at mid-span and at the outer supports.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.433-445
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• 1999

Sandwich panels comprising steel facings and a polystyrene foam core are increasingly used as roof and wall claddings in buildings in Australia. When they are subjected to loads causing bending and/or axial compression, the steel plate elements of their profiled facing are susceptible to local buckling. However, when compared to panels with no foam core, they demonstrate significantly improved local buckling behaviour because they are supported by foam. In order to quantify such improvements and to validate the use of available design buckling stress formulae, an investigation using finite element analyses and laboratory experiments was carried out on steel plates that are commonly used in Australia of varying yield stress and thickness supported by a polystyrene foam core. This paper presents the details of this investigation, the buckling results and their comparison with available design buckling formulae.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.159-172
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• 2014

A finite element model with the consideration of damage initiation and evolution has been developed for the analysis of the dynamic response of a composite sandwich panel subject to low velocity impact. Typical damage modes including fiber breakage, matrix crushing and cracking, delamination and core crushing are considered in this model. Strain-based Hashin failure criteria with stiffness degradation mechanism are used in predicting the initiation and evolution of intra-laminar damage modes by self-developed VUMAT subroutine. Zero-thickness cohesive elements are adopted along the interface regions between the facesheets and the foam core to simulate the initiation and propagation of delamination. A crushable foam core model with volumetric hardening rule is used to simulate the mechanical behavior of foam core material at the plastic state. The time history curves of contact force and the core collapse area are obtained. They all show a good correlation with the experimental data.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.286-296
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• 2020

Sandwich structures are general-purpose structures that can reduce the structural weight of composite ships. Core materials are essential for these structures, with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foams being the most popular. These foam core materials are subjected to various tests in the development process, and must satisfy the performance requirements of several ISO and ASTM standards. Therefore, a procedure for evaluating the performance of foam core materials was proposed in this paper. In addition, prototypes were fabricated using a commercial PVC foam core product in accordance with the structural design of an 11 m fiber-reinforced plastic yacht. Then, a case study was conducted on the proposed evaluation procedure. The proposed procedure facilitates the understanding of the performance requirements and evaluation of core materials used in composite ships and is expected to be utilized in developing core materials for marine structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.301-308
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• 2018

Properties of AFS vary with the changes in the face-sheet materials. Hence, the performance of AFS can be optimized by selecting face-sheet materials. In this work, three types of face-sheet materials representing elastic-perfectly plastic, elastic-plastic strain hardening and purely elastic materials were employed to study their effects on the flexural behavior and failure mechanism of AFS systematically. Result showed face-sheet materials affected the failure mechanism and energy absorption ability of AFS significantly. When the foam cores were sandwiched by aluminum alloy 6061, the AFS failed by face-sheet yielding and crack without collapse of the foam core, there was no clear plastic platform in the Load-Displacement curve. When the foam cores were sandwiched by stainless steel 304 and carbon fiber fabric, there were no face-sheet crack and the sandwich structure failed by core shear and collapse, plastic platform appeared. Energy absorption abilities of steel and carbon fiber reinforced AFS were much higher than aluminum alloy reinforced one. Carbon fiber was suggested as the best choice for AFS for its light weight and high performance. The versus strength ratio of face sheet to core was suggested to be a significant value for AFS structure design which may determine the failure mechanism of a certain AFS structure.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.139-154
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• 2016

The usage of sandwich structure is extensively increasing in lightweight protective structures due to its low density and other useful properties. Sandwich panels made of metal sheets with unfilled cellular cores are found to exhibit lower deflections by comparing to an equivalent monolithic plate of same metal and similar mass per unit density. However, the process of localized impact on solid structures involving plastic deformation, high strain rates, temperature effect, material erosion, etc. does not hold effectively as that of monolithic plate. In present work, the applications of the sandwich plate with corrugated core have been extended to develop optimized lightweight armour using foam as medium of its core by explicit finite element analysis (FEA). The mechanisms of hardened steel projectile penetration of aluminum corrugated sandwich panels filled with foams have been numerically investigated by finite element analysis (FEA). A comparative study is done for the triangular corrugated sandwich plate filled with polymeric foam and metallic foam with different densities in order to achieve the optimum penetration resistance to ballistic impact. Corrugated sandwich plates filled with metallic foams are found to be superior when compared to the polymeric one. The optimized results are then compared with that of equivalent solid and unfilled cores structure to observe the effectiveness of foam-filled corrugated sandwich plate which provides an effective resistance to ballistic response. The novel structure can be the alternative to solid aluminum plate in the applications of light weight protection system.

• Composites Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.86-93
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• 2024

The inner foam structure plays an important role in the performance of the carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) rear spoiler used in automobiles. However, there is still a lack of studies for the CFRP-based rear spoiler according to the type of inner foam, especially under the high-speed driving condition. With this motivation, we numerically analyze the performance of the CFRP rear spoiler using various cases of the inner foam under the highspeed driving condition. Here, polymethacrylimide (PMI), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and styrene acrylonitrile (SAN) resins are employed as the inner foams in this work. The performances are evaluated using the deformation aspects and vibration characteristics when the driving condition is a high-speed condition (200 km/h). Furthermore, to specifically verify the importance of the inner foam in the high-speed condition, we additionally investigate the performance of the CFRP rear spoiler without the inner foam structure (i.e., hollow type). As a result, it is confirmed that among the types of inner foams utilized in this work, the PMI and PVC inner foams have the best deformation aspect and vibration characteristic, respectively. Note that the hollow-type inner foam has inferior performances compared to other inner foams invoked in this study. Consequently, through this study, it can be confirmed that the inner foam structure can significantly improve the performance of the CFRP spoiler under high-speed driving condition (200 km/h), and also that the strengths of the CFRP spoiler can manifest differently depending on the types of inner foam core.