Minimum Weight of a Sandwich Panel

TLDR: In this paper, the least-weight problem of a truncated, hollow, hexagonal core and subjected to a given bending moment along each edge is analyzed in order to meet the practical manufacturing requirements and be within allowable stress limits, constraints are placed on the geometrical dimensions of the structural parts of the sandwich panel as well as on the physical strength.

Abstract: The least‐weight problem of a sandwich panel with a truncated, hollow, hexagonal core, and subjected to a given bending moment along each edge is analyzed in this paper. In order to meet the practical manufacturing requirements and be within allowable stress limits, constraints are placed on the geometrical dimensions of the structural parts of the sandwich panel as well as on the physical strength, such as the allowable stresses. Upper and lower limiting values are assigned for each of the design variables. Through the use of the penalty function, the minimization problem subjected to a set of twenty inequality constraints is changed to a sequence of unconstrained ones. The modified Fletcher‐Powell method is used by a proper choice of the penalty parameter and the reduction factor. The methodology presented here can be extended to include multiple loading conditions, bending rigidity, and shear rigidity requirements, which present no additional difficulties except to increase the number of constraints.