Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams
Mechanics
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What is This?
ABSTRACT: An investigation was conducted of failure modes and criteria for their
occurrence in composite sandwich beams. The initiation of the various failure modes
depends on the material properties of the constituents (facings and core), geometric
dimensions and type of loading. The beams were made of unidirectional carbon/
epoxy facings and aluminum honeycomb and PVC closed-cell foam cores. The
constituent materials were fully characterized and in the case of the foam core,
failure envelopes were developed for general two-dimensional states of stress.
Sandwich beams were loaded under bending moment and shear and failure modes
were observed and compared with analytical predictions. The failure modes
investigated are face sheet compressive failure, adhesive bond failure, indentation
failure, core failure and facing wrinkling.
INTRODUCTION
They were tabbed with 7.62 cm (3 in) long tabs at the ends and were tested
in an IITRI fixture (Daniel and Ishai, 1994). The longitudinal tensile
and compressive stress–strain behavior for the AS4/3501-6 carbon/epoxy is
shown in Figure 1, where it is seen that the material exhibits a characteristic
stiffening nonlinearity in tension and softening nonlinearity in compression.
Three different core materials were investigated. One of them was
aluminum honeycomb (PAMG 8.1-3/16 001-P-5052, Plascore Co.). The
other core materials investigated were two types of a fully cross-linked PVC
closed-cell foam, Divinycell H100 and H250, with densities of 100 and
250 kg/m3, respectively.
The aluminum honeycomb material is highly anisotropic with much
higher stiffness and strength in the through-the-thickness direction (cell
direction) than in the in-plane directions. The three principal moduli E1, E2
and E3 (along the cell axis) were obtained by means of flexural and pure
compression tests. The out-of-plane shear modulus G13 was obtained by
means of a rail shear test.
The lower density foam core material, Divinycell H100, exhibits nearly
isotropic behavior as illustrated by the stress–strain curves under uniaxial
tension and compression along the in-plane (1) and out-of-plane (3) direc-
tions in Figures 2 and 3. The higher density foam, Divinycell H250, exhibits
pronounced axisymmetric anisotropy with much higher stiffness and
strength in the cell direction (3-direction). Figure 4 shows stress–strain
Through-the-thickness
In-plane
1(3)
3(1)
Figure 2. Stress–strain curves of PVC foam (Divinycell H100) under uniaxial tension in the
through-the-thickness (3) and in-plane (1) directions.
Figure 3. Stress–strain curves of PVC foam (Divinycell H100) under uniaxial compression in
the through-the-thickness (3) and in-plane (1) directions.
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 313
curves for this material under uniaxial tension and compression along the
in-plane (1) and through-the-thickness (3) directions. The material displays
different behavior in tension and compression with tensile strengths much
higher than corresponding compressive strengths. The uniaxial stress–strain
behavior in tension is nonlinear elastic without any identifiable yield region.
In uniaxial compression the material is nearly elastic-perfectly plastic in
the initial stage of yielding. The shear stress–strain behavior on the
1–3 plane was determined by the Arcan test and is shown in Figure 5. The
shear behavior is also nearly elastic-perfectly plastic. Some characteristic
properties of the sandwich constituent materials investigated are tabulated
in Table 1.
A common failure mode in sandwich construction is the so-called ‘‘core
shear failure,’’ in which the core fails when the shear stress reaches its critical
value. However, although the shear stress is usually the dominant one in the
core, there are situations in which the normal stresses in the core are
of comparable magnitude or even higher than the shear stresses. Under such
circumstances a material element in the core may be subjected to a multi-
axial state of stress. Therefore, proper design of sandwich structures requires
failure characterization of the core material under combined stresses.
The higher density foam core was fully characterized under multiaxial
states of stress in the 1–3 plane (Gdoutos et al., 2002). A number of tests
314 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Figure 5. Shear stress–strain curves of PVC foam (Divinycell H250) on 1–3 plane.
Figure 6. Failure pattern of a PVC foam (Divinycell H250) tube specimen subjected to
combined axial, torsion and internal pressure loading.
were conducted to define a failure surface for the material. A typical failure
pattern for a thin-wall tubular specimen under axial load, torsion and
internal pressure is shown in Figure 6. Experimental results conformed well
with the Tsai–Wu failure criterion for anisotropic materials as shown in
Figure 7. The Tsai–Wu criterion for a general two-dimensional state of
stress on the 1–3 plane is expressed as follows
where
1 1 1 1
f1 ¼ , f3 ¼
F1t F1c F3t F3c
1 1 1
f11 ¼ , f33 ¼ , f13 ¼ ð f11 f33 Þ1=2
F1t F1c F3t F3c 2
1
f55 ¼ ,
F52
F1t, F1c, F3t, F3c are the tensile and compressive strengths in the in-plane (1,2)
and out-of-plane (3) directions; F5 is the shear strength on the 1–3 plane.
Setting 5 ¼ kF5 , Equation (1) is rewritten as
316 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Figure 7. Failure envelopes predicted by the Tsai–Wu failure criterion for PVC foam
(Divinycell H250) for k ¼ 0, 0.8 and 1, and experimental results (k ¼ 13/F13 ¼ 5/F5).
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
The honeycomb core was 2.54 cm (1 in) wide and was machined from
a 2.54 cm (1 in) thick sheet along the stiffer in-plane (E1) direction. The
2.54 cm (1 in) wide composite facings were machined from unidirectional
plates, bonded to the top and bottom faces of the honeycomb core with
FM73 M film adhesive and the assembly was cured under pressure in an
oven following the recommended curing cycle for the adhesive. Sandwich
beams were also prepared by bonding composite facings to foam cores of
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 317
N
"c1 "c3 ¼ "s1 "s3 ¼ ð3Þ
2hK
FAILURE MODES
The tension and compression faces may fail under uniaxial stress (Allen,
1969; Zenkert, 1995). In the case of composite facings, compressive failure is
more likely than tensile failure because the material is appreciably weaker in
compression than in tension. This type of failure occurs in beams under pure
bending or bending and low shear with cores of sufficiently high stiffness in
the through-the thickness direction.
This type of failure was observed in sandwich beams with carbon/epoxy
facings and aluminum honeycomb core loaded in four-point bending
(Daniel et al., 1999, 2000). As mentioned before, special reinforcement was
provided for the core at the outer sections of the beam to prevent premature
core failures under shear or indentation failures under the loads. Figure 8
shows plots of the applied bending moment versus strain on the outer
surfaces of the facings. As expected, the curves show the same stiffening and
softening characteristics on the tension and compression sides as the carbon/
epoxy facing material (Figure 1). Failure was governed by the compressive
Figure 8. Experimental and predicted moment–strain curves for two facings of composite
sandwich beam under four-point bending (dimensions are in cm).
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 319
strength of the facing which in this case reached a value of 1930 MPa
(280 ksi), higher than any recorded value for this material under direct
compression. The ultimate compressive strain recorded was 1.6%. This is
attributed to the support provided to the skin by the core which suppresses
the tendency for buckling.
The strain variation through the thickness was checked by embedding
strain gages at the interfaces between the facings and the core and by using
moiré gratings on the core. The moiré pattern corresponding to axial
displacements on the core consists of fringes in the form of hyperbolas,
which is consistent with a linear strain variation through the thickness
(Figure 9).
In general, for the widely used cores which have much lower stiffness than
the facing material, the contribution of the core is negligible. For relatively
thin skins and relatively low core stiffness, compressive failure of the facing
is satisfactorily predicted by the simple moment equilibrium relation
Indentation Failure
Figure 10. Moiré fringe patterns in sandwich beam with foam core corresponding to vertical
displacements at various applied loads (11.8 lines/mm grating). Loads: (a) 318 N (71.5 lb);
(b) 574 N (129 lb); (c) 812 N (182 lb); (d) 924 (208 lb); (e) 1057 N (237 lb); (f) 1080 N (243 lb).
322 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Figure 11. Load vs. deflection under load of sandwich beam under three-point bending
(carbon/epoxy facings, Divinycell H100 core).
¼ kw ð7Þ
Ef, Ec are the facing and core moduli, respectively, b is the beam width, and
hf is the facing thickness.
The interfacial stress (core stress) in Equation (7) is obtained by
determining the deflection w(x) for a beam on an elastic foundation
P x
wðxÞ ¼ e ðcos x þ sin xÞ ð9Þ
2k
where
sffiffiffiffiffiffi
1:18 3 Ec
¼ ð10Þ
hf Ef
By equating the interfacial stress under the load to the yield stress of the
foam core, we obtain an expression for the force at initiation of core yield:
rffiffiffiffiffiffi
3 Ef
Pcy ¼ 1:70cy bhf ð11Þ
Ec
PL
fb ¼ ð13Þ
4bhf ðhf þ hc Þ
Failure occurs when the sum of the stresses above equals the strength of the
facing material
For the beam tested, the critical load at facing failure is calculated as
Core Failure
The core is primarily selected to carry the shear loading. Core failure by
shear is a common failure mode in sandwich construction (Allen 1969; Hall
and Robson, 1984; Zenkert and Vikström, 1992; Zenkert, 1995). In short
beams under three-point bending the core is mainly subjected to shear and
failure occurs when the maximum shear stress reaches the critical value
(shear strength) of the core material. In long-span beams, the normal stresses
become of the same order of magnitude as, or even higher than the shear
stresses. In this case, the core in the beam is subjected to a biaxial state of
stress and fails according to an appropriate failure criterion. It was shown
earlier that failure of the PVC foam core Divinycell H250 can be described
by the Tsai–Wu failure criterion (Gdoutos et al., 2002).
Sandwich beams with aluminum honeycomb cores under three-point
bending failed due to early shear crimping of the core. The shear force at
failure remained nearly constant for varying span lengths. This means that
as the span length increases, the applied maximum moment and thereby the
maximum face sheet strains at failure increase (Figure 12). The results also
indicate that the bending moment is carried almost entirely by the face
sheets. The average shear stress at failure from the three tests represented in
Figure 12 is u ¼ 3.59 MPa (520 psi) which compares well with the measured
shear strength of the honeycomb material of Fcs ¼ 3.45 MPa (500 psi).
The deformation and failure mechanisms in the core were studied
experimentally by means of moiré gratings and birefringent coatings.
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 325
Figure 12. Applied moment vs. maximum facing strain for beams of different span length
under three-point bending.
Figure 13. Moiré fringe patterns corresponding to horizontal and vertical displacements in
sandwich beam under three-point bending (12 lines/mm; Divinycell H250 core).
Figure 13 shows moiré fringe patterns in the core of a sandwich beam under
three-point bending. The moiré fringe patterns corresponding to the u and w
displacements away from the applied load consist of nearly parallel and
equidistant fringes from which it follows that
@u
"x ¼ ffi0
@x
@w
"z ¼ ffi0 ð15Þ
@z
@u @w
xz ¼ þ ffi constant
@z @x
326 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Figure 14. Isochromatic fringe patterns in birefringent coating of sandwich beam under
three-point bending.
Figure 15. Variation with increasing load of shear strain distribution through-the-thickness.
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 327
Thus, the core is under nearly uniform shear stress. This is true only in the
linear range as shown by the isochromatic fringe patterns of the birefringent
coating in Figure 14. In the nonlinear and plastic region the core begins to
yield and the shear strain becomes highly nonuniform peaking at the center.
From fringe patterns like those of Figure 14 it was found that the shear
deformation starts becoming nonuniform at an applied load of 3.29 kN
(740 lb) which corresponds to an average shear stress of 2.55 MPa (370 psi).
This is close to the proportional limit of the shear stress–strain curve of
Figure 5. As the load increases, the shear strain in the core becomes
nonuniform peaking at the center as illustrated in Figures 14 and 15.
Core failure is accelerated when compressive and shear stresses are
combined. This critical combination is evident from the failure envelope of
Figure 7. The criticality of the compression/shear stress biaxiality was tested
with a cantilever sandwich beam loaded at the free end. The isochromatic
fringe patterns of the birefringent coating in Figure 16 show how the peak
birefringence moves towards the fixed end of the beam at the bottom where
the compressive strain is the highest and superimposed on the shear strain.
Plastic deformation of the core, whether due to shear alone or a combina-
tion of compression and shear, degrades the supporting role of the core and
precipitates other more catastrophic failure modes, such as facing wrinkling.
Figure 16. Isochromatic fringe patterns in birefringent coating of cantilever sandwich beam.
328 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Figure 17. Facing wrinkling in sandwich beam under four-point bending (Divinycell H100
foam; dimensions are in cm).
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 329
materials modified here to consider only the face modulus along the axis of
the beam, is
1=2
2 hf Ec3 Ef 1
cr ¼ ¼ 687 MPa ð99:5 ksiÞ ð16Þ
3 hc ð1
13
31 Þ
In the case when shear is present in addition to bending, accounting must
be taken of the influence of the transverse shear modulus of the core, Gc13.
An early expression given by Hoff and Mautner (1945) has the form
cr ¼ cðEf 1 Ec3 Gc13 Þ1=3 ð17Þ
where c is a constant usually taken as equal to 0.5, 0.6, or 0.65. Note that
the critical stress in this expression depends only on the elastic moduli of
the facing and core materials. In the relation above the core moduli are the
initial elastic moduli if wrinkling occurs while the core is still in the linear
elastic range. This requires that the shear force at the time of wrinkling be
low enough or, at least,
V < Ac Fcs ð18Þ
where Ac is core cross-sectional area and Fcs the shear strength of the core.
This is the case of long span beams under three-point bending or long
cantilever beams under end loading.
Figure 18 shows moment versus strain curves for an end loaded cantilever
beam where an indication of wrinkling is given by the strain reading at a
local critical stress of
Figure 18. Moment vs. strain curves for cantilever sandwich beam (Divinycell H250 core).
330 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Using the measured material properties from Table 1 and a value of c ¼ 0.5
in Equation (17) we obtain
In the case of shorter span beams where the shear loading component is
significant, core failure precedes facing wrinkling. Core yielding and
stiffness loss reduce core support of the facings and precipitate facing
wrinkling failure at a lower stress. The critical wrinkling stress in that case
would be
0
cr ¼ 0:5ðEf 1 Ec3 G0c13 Þ1=3 ð19Þ
0
where Ec3 , G0c13 are the reduced core Young’s and shear moduli in the
through-the-thickness direction.
Figure 19 shows moment versus strain curves for a beam under three-
point bending. Facing wrinkling seems to occur at a local bending moment
of 330 N m (2900 lb in) and a shear force of 2875 N (646 lb). The local critical
facing stress is
Figure 19. Moment vs. strain curves for sandwich beam under three-point bending
(Divinycell H250 core).
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 331
considerably lower than the predicted value of 947 MPa (137 ksi). The
reduction is attributed to the core stiffness reduction, which in this case
would be
0
Ec3 G0
E ¼ ffi c13 ¼ 0:385
Ec3 Gc13
Figure 20. Critical load vs. span length for failure initiation in sandwich beams under three-
point bending.
332 I.M. DANIEL ET AL.
Mode Criterion
Face sheet compressive failure Composite failure criterion
(e.g., maximum stress, Tsai–Wu)
Face sheet debonding Maximum shear stress of adhesive,
or interfacial fracture toughness
Indentation failure Core state of stress reaches failure
condition; critical compressive stress
in face sheet under combined local
and global bending
Core failure State of stress in foam reaches
failure condition (e.g., Tsai–Wu)
Face sheet wrinkling Face sheet stress equals critical
local buckling stress
Failure Modes of Composite Sandwich Beams 333
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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