Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Sandwich Composite Beam under Flexural Bending

This study presents result of an experimental and numerical investigation on the flexural behavior of sandwich composite beam under four point bending static load. The skin and the core of the sandwich composite beam are made of glass fiber reinforced polymer and polyvinylchloride (PVC) foam, respectively. The experiments performed on the different lengths of the sandwich beams revealed the core indentation mode of failure under the lodgings roller. The numerical modeling of the composite sandwich beam was performed using ABAQUS finite element package. Both physical and geometrical non linearity are taken into account. Damage of the face sheets are predicted by using HASHIN failure criteria implemented by USDFLD code in ABAQUS software. The plastic response of the foam core is modeled by the CRUSHABLE FOAM in ABAQUS code. In the numerical part the effects of the beam length, thickness of the face sheet and the core on failure mode and ultimate strength of composite sandwich beam was investigated. The experimental data showed good agreement with numerical findings