Bending Experiment and Mechanical Properties Analysis of Composite Sandwich Laminated Box Beams

The failure modes, ultimate load, stiffness performance, and their influencing factors of a composite sandwich laminated box beam under three-point bending load are studied by an experiment, finite element model, and analytical method. The three-point bending experiment was carried out on three different core composite sandwich laminated box beams, and the failure modes and bearing capacity were studied. With the use of composite progressive damage analysis and the core elastoplastic constitutive model, the finite element model of the composite sandwich laminated box beam was established, and the three-point bending failure process and failure modes were analyzed. The analytical model was established based on the Timoshenko beam theory. The overall bending stiffness and shear stiffness of the composite sandwich laminated box beam were calculated by the internal force-displacement relationship. The results show that the composite sandwich laminated box beam mainly suffers from local crushing failure, and the errors between the finite element simulation and the experiment result were within 7%. The analytical model of the composite sandwich laminated box beam can approximately predict the overall stiffness parameters, while the maximum error between theoretic results and experimental values was 5.2%. For composite aluminum honeycomb sandwich laminated box beams with a ratio of span to height less than 10, the additional deflection caused by shear deformation has an error of more than 25%. With the ratio of circumferential layers to longitudinal layers increasing, the three-point bending ultimate load of the composite sandwich laminated box beam increases, but the ratio of the overall stiffness to mass reduces. The use of low-density aluminum foam and smaller-wall-thickness cell aluminum honeycombs allows for the more obvious benefits of light weight.