Bending behaviour of sandwich panels with aluminium foam core

The bending behavior of hybrid sandwich panels, with aluminum foam core, and carbon fiber reinforced thermoset resin face sheets, have been investigated. The effect of core and face sheets thickness and span , on 3-point bending test, has been evaluated for the sandwich panels . Core yielding and indentation failure modes, influenced by the core properties, have been identified and analytical models to evaluate the maximum load have been applied. The failure mode map has been constructed, which illustrates the dominant failure mode for practical beam design. In order to simulate the different failure modes, FE analysis has been pointed out.