Face Sheet Buckling Behavior of a CFRP/Honeycomb Sandwich Panel for Aircraft Interiors Subjected to Edgewise Compression

Abstract

As an alternative evaluation method to the four-point bending test, a strength evaluation and prediction method for carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP)/Nomex honeycomb sandwich panels for aircraft interiors was investigated using edgewise compression tests. The failure mode of the edgewise compression test was experimentally demonstrated to be identical to that of the four-point bending test, that is, the delamination between the face sheet (CFRP) and core originated from face sheet local buckling. The same origin of failure was confirmed by buckling eigenvalue analysis. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the calculation accuracy of buckling load analysis can be improved by using postbuckling analysis, which considers the initial irregularity. The computation time for buckling eigenvalue analysis by edgewise compression can be reduced to 1/100 of that required for bending analysis. Therefore, it is expected to reduce the development cost for optimizing the material configuration of sandwich panels using edgewise compression analysis.