GEOMETRICAL OPTIMIZATION AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF ALUMINUM HONEYCOMB SANDWICH CONSTRUCTION FORMWORKS

Abstract

The technique innovation of construction formwork is of great importance in concrete engineering. The possibility of applying honeycomb sandwich structures to aluminum construction formwork was analyzed by computational and test methods. The equivalent elastic parameters of a honeycomb core structure were calculated based on Gibson’s theory, and then the stresses and deformation of the honeycomb sandwich construction formwork subjected to a uniformly distributed load were computed by using Reissner’s model. The geometrical parameters of the honeycomb sandwich structure were optimized under the deformation and constraint conditions according to the industry standard of aluminum construction formwork. Finally, the bending tests of the honeycomb sandwich aluminum construction formworks were conducted in which full-field three-dimensional deformation data were acquired by using a digital photogrammetric system. The test results are in a good agreement with that of the theoretical computation. It shows that the mass of the aluminum formwork can be reduced at least 60% after the application of honeycomb sandwich structures.