Design and Analysis of the Flat Honeycomb Sandwich Structures

 

Zoran Petrović

Ivan Lazarević

 

Structural sandwich is a unique form of the composite structure, and it finds a widespread use in the aerospace industry, where weight saving is a primary concern. The major difference between analysis procedures for sandwich construction and those for homogeneous structural elements is the inclusion of core shear effects on deflection, buckling and stress. The design procedure given in this article is intended to guide the designer in sizing the sandwich parts for primary loading properly. These procedures are usually iterative, and optimum design may require the design of several face–core combinations. Comparing the results obtained through the analytical procedure and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) one can conclude their good agreement. Differences for most of the results are from 10% to 15%, which is quite satisfactory, taking into account that the analytical models are formed on the basis of a number of assumptions and approximations.

Key words: sandwich structure, honeycomb core, application in aviation, aircraft, aircraft structure, face, structural analysis, finite element analysis.