Abstract
The effectiveness of the homogenization method for the analysis of composite materials has been shown since it was firstly introduced in the 1970's. As this method is applicable to periodic problems only, however, some important engineering problems remain unsolved. Those problems are, for instance, honey-comb sandwich plates and panels with reinforcing ribs, which are not periodic in the thickness direction. In this paper, the application of the homogenization method to those problems is discussed. As a pratical example, stress analysis of single-layered corrugated core sandwich plates is presented. A method to homogenize its complicated geometry to a simple solid model, to get the homogenized material constants, and to calculate the microscopic stress is proposed.
