Mechanical behavior and failure of composite pyramidal truss core sandwich columns

A series of analytical and experimental investigations is presented to study the response and failure of pyramidal truss core sandwich panels made of carbon fiber composite under axial compression. In the analytical part of the study, three failure modes: (i) Euler or core shear macro-buckling, (ii) face wrinkling, and (iii) face sheet crushing, were considered and theoretical relationships for predicting the failure load associated with each mode were presented. In the experimental part of the study, three different sets of specimens were manufactured to probe the three failure modes mentioned above. Pyramidal truss cores were fabricated using a hot-press molding technique and were bonded to composite face sheets made of fiber reinforced composite. The response of the sandwich panels under axial compression was measured up to failure. The measured peak loads obtained in the experiments showed good agreement with the analytical predictions. The experiments also provide insight into the post-failure response of the sandwich panels. Crown Copyright 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.