Abstract
The investigation on the deflection of sandwich beams is of prime importance for the reasonable evaluation of the structural efficiency. The multi-layer built-up theory in which a sandwich beam is assumed as a laminated beam with three layers can be applied satisfactorily to the analysis of sandwich type beams used for house building components. Comparing the built-up theory with Hoff's theory and the conventional beam theory, the analytical results due to the multi-layer built-up theory were found to agree well with the experimental results obtained by three-point bending tests for various sandwich panels practically used for house building members. The maximum central deflection of simply supported sandwich beam can be generally predicted by two kinds of nondimensional parameters. The maximum deviation of the experimental deflections from the theoretical ones was within ±15 percent.
