Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Reinforcement Sheet Effect on the Bending Strength of Corrugated Composite Panels

This paper investigates the influence of reinforcement sheet on the bending strength of corrugated composite panel by numerical and experimental analysis based on three-point bending tests in both longitudinal and transverse directions. In the numerical analysis, Hashin failure criterion was used to detect the failure, and an instantaneous material properties degradation model via a VUSDFLD subroutine developed in the commercial software ABAQUS was employed to simulate the behavior of the panel after damage initiation. At first, the adequate position of the reinforcement sheet, which improved bending strength of the panel, is discovered among some proposed positions by numerical analysis. Then, the desired panel with optimum reinforcement sheet as an improved panel and a panel without the reinforcement sheet as a base panel were investigated by numerical and experimental analyses and the results were compared with each other. The results showed that for the longitudinal direction, adding a reinforcement sheet has an unfavorable effect on the bending strength to weight ratio of the panel, but for the transverse direction, it increases the bending strength to weight ratio significantly. Furthermore, the experimental results demonstrate that using Balsa wood as a core in the corrugated panels also leads to increasing the bending strength to weight ratio. All in all, it can be found from finite element analysis that the VUSDFLD subroutine is adequate for quick damage analysis with acceptable accuracy.