Pitch effect on flexural behavior of sandwich structure with composite skins and a corrugated combinatorial core with trapezoidal geometry

In this paper the experimental and numerical study on flexural behavior of new type sandwich structures with glass-epoxy skins and a combinatorial core consist of foam and corrugated composite with trapezoidal geometry was investigated. After sample production by vacuum assisted resin transform molding technique; samples were tested according to standard and then the related load-deflection curves were obtained. Finite element analysis was applied for determining maximum deflection of samples by ABAQUS software. In experimental three series of samples with combinatorial core and three different pitch for trapezoidal corrugated composite in a foam core and one series of sample with simple foam core; have been product. In order to experimental accuracy of problem; three same samples have been product in each case and the average data have been used for results. It has been shown that the flexural stiffness was increased with decreasing in pitch; and the flexural stiffness to mass ratio was increased at first but then was decreased with decreasing in pitch. Finally the experimental and numerical results were compared and a reasonable agreement between them has been observed.