NUMERICAL OPTIMIZATION OF SANDWICH COMPOSITE STRUCTURE UNDER FLEXURAL LOAD

الملخص

The structures of a sandwich composite have been utilized in the aerospace industry and
engineering applications. Prediction of a theoretical composite construction's flexural
properties is important for efficient composite products design. In this investigation, four
different core shapes were used in the fabrication of the sandwich frames with constant
volume of sandwich composite structure in each case; these are hexagonal, rectangular,
triangular and circular. The effect of core stiffeners number was studied to finding the best
stiffeners number which gives the highest properties in strength using the finite element
analysis.
The material of the each face sheet is consisting from epoxy with four layers of a woven
fiberglass laminate construction, and the core stiffener material consists from epoxy matrix
with carbon fiber, the fiber volume fraction was 60% for both skins and core composites.
The analysis of the three point bending load with a value of (10 kN) conducted by
constructing a finite element model, explained that the best shape of core was rectangular
which give less deflection value of (11.939 mm) from the other shapes, for the same
properties of material and constant core volume in each case. Also, it was determined the
optimum stiffeners number, for the rectangular core, was five stiffeners in longitudinal
direction and twelve stiffeners in transverse direction, gives strengthen structure.