FOAM CORE SANDWICH PANELS WITH INTERFACE DISBONDS

The influence of a face-to-core interface disbond on the strength of a foam core sandwich panel is investigated. The geometry considered is a square sandwich panel with a circular disbond subjected to a uniformly distributed pressure load. The disbond, located in the centre of the panel, is treated as a crack. and the finite clement method is used to compute stress intensity factors. These are compared to fracture toughness data to predict the onset of crack growth and, thus, the reduction in load-bearing capacity. The analyses are verified with experiments on full-scale sandwich panels.