Effect of corrugated composite laminate thickness imprised in foam core on flexural behavior of sandwich structure with composite skins and a corrugated combinatorial core with rectangular geometry

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 rectangular geometry was investigated in this paper. 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 thicknesses for rectangular shape 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 increasing in thickness; and the flexural stiffness to mass ratio was increased so on; but the rate of this increasing was decreased from 3 to 5 layers of corrugated composite laminate in PVC foam. Finally the experimental and numerical results were compared and a reasonable agreement between them has been observed.