A new theory for bending of thick sandwich beams

Abstract

Classical sandwich theory incorporates stretching and bending action in the facings and transverse shear deformation in the core. The theory presented here is intended for sandwich beams with relatively thick facings and moderately stiff cores of either bimodular material (which has different elastic moduli in tension and compression) or ordinary materials. Thus, transverse shear deformation in the facings as well as stretching and bending action in the core are also considered. Both analytical and finite-element results are presented and compared with the existing classical sandwich theory, which is shown to be unconservative in its predictions of both deflections and maximum shear stresses.