In-plane compressive responses and failure behaviors of composite sandwich plates with resin reinforced foam core

The paper presented an experimental study on the effect of the resin reinforced core configuration and core thickness on in-plane compressive responses and failure behaviors of composite sandwich specimens. Two resin reinforced core machining configurations were designed with three core thickness along. In-plane compressive load, displacement, strains on both sides, and failure morphology were closely monitored during the loading process. Meanwhile, the theoretical method also was supplementary to forecast the failures of sandwich structures. It was found that the enhancement of grooved, perforated holes and contour cut (GPC) core was better than double-side grooved and perforated hole (DGP) core to improve the in-plane compressive capacity of sandwich specimens for all thick cores. The core fracture or skin/core debonding failure of sandwich specimens resulted in an instant drop of in-plane compressive load, and the global buckling led to a slower reduction. The failure mode changed from global buckling to skin/core debonding at both sides as the core thickness increased for the Plain core sandwich specimen; switched from global buckling to a combined failure of core fracture and skin/core debonding at both sides, and then to skin/core debonding at both sides for the DGP core sandwich specimen; the skin/core debonding at the shallow side occurred for all GPC core specimens. The slight buckling trace of strains before the peak load probably triggered the skin/core debonding of sandwich specimens. The theoretical method could well forecast failure loads and corresponding failure modes of sandwich specimens with the 15 mm thick core, and reasonably predict failure loads for sandwich specimens with 30 mm and 45 mm thick cores.