Experimental investigation on core shape effect on compressive properties of sandwich structures with composite skins, corrugated composite core and foam

In this paper, the behavior of sandwich structures with composite skins and the core that consists of foam and a corrugated composite laminate under compressive load is investigated experimentally. Three geometrical shapes including square, trapezoid and triangle forms are considered for corrugated composite laminate and results are compared with reference specimen with simple core that is made of foam. Skins and corrugated composite laminate are made from woven glass and epoxy resin; PVC foam is used in core. Corrugated composite laminate is built using the hand layup method and vacuum assisted resin transfer molding technique is used to join the skins to the core. In order to confirm experimental accuracy of test three of the same samples have been produced for each type of core shape and the average of the data tests has been used to compare the results. The edgewise compressive test based on ASTM is used to perform the experimental test. The results show that set corrugated laminate composite in core improves the mechanical properties (such as compressive strength, axial stiffness, toughness) and the ratio of mechanical properties to the weight of these structures to a large extent. Also, by approaching the square shape the structure achieves more favorable properties. The results have shown that compressive strength is increased from 188.56% (triangle core) to 362.37% (square core) and the ratio of compressive strength to weight is increased from 92.36% (triangle core) to 141.4% (square core).