Sandwich panel

About: Sandwich panel is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4665 publications have been published within this topic receiving 49812 citations.

Wet deck slamming experiments with a FRP sandwich panel using a network of 16 fibre optic Bragg grating strain sensors

Abstract: Drop test experiments have been performed with a FRP sandwich panel instrumented with a network of 16 fibre optic (FO) Bragg strain sensors, together with conventional electrical strain gauges for control and verification. The drop tests simulate slamming loads on the wet deck of a surface effect ship (SES). The objectives were to show the possibility of using a network of FO sensors to monitor strain during a slamming impact, and to test out a technique for signal processing. The strain measurements provided both peak strain data and served as a base for frequency analysis. The results showed that the FO strain sensors performed satisfactorily and were in general agreement with the conventional strain gauges used. The FO interrogation system was, however, not designed with sufficiently large dynamic range for the most extreme drop sequences. The peak strain in the panel was found to increase almost proportionally with the drop velocity, or drop height, and the wet fundamental frequency increased with increasing drop angle. Furthermore, the frequency decreased with increasing drop velocity.

Experimental and numerical study of double-skin aluminium foam sandwich panels in bending

Abstract: Metal foams are engineered materials with attractive mechanical properties such as lightness, energy dissipation capacity, high resistance and stiffness. To date, the applications of these materials are mainly limited to aeronautic and mechanical engineering. However, their features can provide significant advantages also for the development of new products for structures and infrastructures in the field of civil engineering. This consideration has motivated the study described in this paper, which is mainly devoted to assessing the performance of double-skin composite sandwich panels made of steel sheets and aluminium foam to be used as the deck in civil structures. To this aim, as the first step of ongoing research activity, both experimental and finite element (FE) simulations are carried out verifying the applicability of the proposed type of sandwich panel. Both tests on material specimens and three-point bending tests on the double-skin composite sandwich panels are performed, and the main results are discussed. FE analyses are carried out enlarging the range of investigated and monitored parameters assessing their influence on the bending and shear response of the panels. The outcomes of the study show the effectiveness of the proposed type of sandwich panel and allow selecting the most effective type of adhesive to bond the steel plates to the aluminium foam core. The obtained results are complemented with simple design equations that allow satisfactorily predicting both stiffness and strength of the sandwich panels.