Flexural Behavior of Sandwich Structures with Rohacell 71-Hero Foam and OX-Honeycomb Cores

Abstract

Abstract Rohacell foam and Honeycomb cores have been widely applied in aerospace engineering as the core materials of sandwich structures. This paper proposes a study to compare the flexural response between two types of sandwich structures, one with Rohacell 71-Hero foam core and the other with OX-Honeycomb core, both laminated with E-Glass Epoxy as face-sheet panels. Both sandwich structures were subjected to Four Point Bending Test to determine the flexural response in each case. The maximum failure load was recorded in each case along with the type of failure. Analytical model of the foregoing sandwich beam was developed on ANSYS Workbench, in which the Tsai-Wu failure criteria is used to predict failure under load in both sandwich structures with Rohacell and Honeycomb cores. The results of both sandwich structures obtained experimentally as well as analytically were compared to understand the nature of failure under load.