An energetic homogenisation procedure for the elastic properties of general cellular sandwich cores

The present study provides a general procedure for the determination of the effective elastic properties of two-dimensional cellular sandwich cores with arbitrary cell topology and geometry. The scheme uses a strain energy-based representative volume element procedure assuming that macroscopically equivalent strain states have to cause the same strain energy in a representative volume element whether the real microstructure or the "effective" homogenised medium is considered. The strain energy can be evaluated either by analytical or pure numerical methods. Both approaches agree well in a number of examples considering different sandwich core geometries. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.