Composite Skin Elastic Constants from Monolithic In-plane Specimens and Bonded Out-of-plane Specimens

Abstract

In this study, a full set of elastic constants (in-plane (IP) and out-of-plane (OOP)) is determined/estimated for two sandwich composite skin laminates. For the out-of-plane properties, compression and shear specimens are cut from the skin laminates and bonded together to avoid making thick laminates. This approach gives a relatively low experimental scatter for the elastic constants indicating that the measurements are not affected by the presence of the thin adhesive layers between the laminates. Finite element calculations are performed to further study the effect of the adhesive layers. It is found that the effect of the adhesive layers is minor in the range of strains used to determine the elastic constants.