Analytical Solution for the Large Deflection of Fully Clamped Metallic Foam Sandwich Beam

A unified yield criterion is proposed in this paper, which is valid for the metallic sandwich sections with various core strength and geometrical dimensions and can reduce to the classical yield criteria for solid monolithic section and sandwich section with weak core, respectively. Then, the unified yield criterion is used to derive the analytical solution for the large deflection of fully clamped metallic sandwich beam subject to a transversely concentrated load, in which the interaction of bending and stretching is considered. Comparisons of the present solutions with experimental results are carried out and good agreements are found. It is seen that the axial stretching induced by large deflection has a significant effect on the deflection of sandwich structure in the post-yield regime, and the load carrying capacity of metallic foam core sandwich beam may be underestimated as the core strength is neglected in analysis.