Stress analysis of homogenized web-core sandwich beams

This paper presents a stress analysis method for web-core sandwich beams. The beam is a transverse cut from a sandwich plate. The analysis is carried out by transforming the initially periodic web-core sandwich beam, constructed from a set of unit cells, into an equivalent homogenous sandwich beam. Certain deformation components are set equal both in periodic and homogenous beams when a unit cell is considered. The structural analysis of the homogenized beam follows thick face plate kinematics giving the deflection, bending moment and shear force distributions. Then the normal stress components can be calculated accurately by reconsidering the periodic structure of the beam. The validation of the proposed method is carried out with FE-analyses.