DAMAGE TOLERANCE STUDY OF HONEYCOMB SANDWICH STRUCTURE

Reshma Babu, Sunil Kumar G, Atul Kumar, P. Eapen Sakaria

Abstract: Composite materials are essential component in today’s modern world. Structural sandwich construction is one of the first form of composite structures. In this study honeycomb sandwich structure which is a peculiar type of composite structure was investigated for crashworthiness. They are manmade structures with a honeycomb geometry. It consists of three elements ; Top face sheet, Core, Bottom face sheet. They are widely used in aerospace industry, marine, rail, automotive industry, in construction field as prefabricated partition walls, mezzanine floor, doors etc. The main objective of this study was to assess the damage tolerance of honeycomb sandwich structure based on serviceability and safety of the structure ie. to understand ability of structure to sustain defects safely until repair/replacement is performed. Damage tolerance study was performed to know with how much load this structure would safely withstand and also to know till how much load this structure would be made serviceable, if a damage is caused to it. Investigations were performed on both damaged and undamaged specimens by conducting. Four point bending flexure test and Edgewise compression test based on ASTM standards. Also finite element modeling of honeycomb sandwich structure was developed and analysis of the two experiments were performed in Ansys. Ultimate load, tensile and compressive stress values etc. obtained from the two experiments were compared for both damaged and undamaged specimen. Based on the results obtained it could be inferred that the load carrying capacity of honeycomb sandwich structure reduces, if a damage is caused to it but can perform its duty with reduced efficiency

Keywords: Honeycomb Sandwich, Crashworthiness, Four point bending and Edgewise compression

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0508047