Analysis of structural performance of sandwich plates with foam-filled aluminum hexagonal honeycomb core

Exploitation experience of honeycomb sandwich structures has shown that one of the most frequently encountered in-service problems is debonding at the interface between face sheets (skins) and core. Filling of honeycomb type cores with foam allows to enhance the damage resistance to the debonding propagation, but on the other hand it changes the structural responses of sandwich structure. The aim of the paper is to estimate of a polymeric foam influence on the free vibration and buckling characteristics of sandwich plates with a hexagonal honeycomb core. The analyses of sandwich plates with hollow and foam-filled honeycomb cores are carried out using the commercially available finite element code ABAQUS. The sandwich plates were modelled on the basis of simplified three-layered continuum models. The displacement-based homogeneous technique using finite element method (FEM) is applied to evaluate the effective elastic properties of core for both hollow and filled with foam honeycomb cores. The comparative results of load carrying capacities and magnitudes of natural frequencies of the sandwich plates are presented. The structural benefits of foam-filled sandwich plates are briefly discussed.