Large deformation of corrugated sandwich panels under three-point bending

Corrugated sandwich panels are widely used in engineering applications for their excellent energy absorption and lightweight. In this research, the mechanical response of aluminum corrugated sandwich panels subjected to three-point bending is investigated experimentally, numerically, and theoretically. In the experiments, the sandwich panels were loaded under two conditions, namely base indentation and node indentation. A parametric study is conducted by ABAQUS/explicit to investigate the effects of geometric configurations (corrugation angle, core height, and core thickness) on the deformation mode, peak force, and energy absorption. Both peak force and specific energy absorption vary with the geometric parameters. Theoretical models are further developed to predict the force–displacement curves of the panels under the two loading conditions. The theoretically predicted crushing force is in good agreement with both the experimental and simulated results. Finally, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II is adopted to optimize the geometric configuration to improve the specific energy absorption and reduce the weight of corrugated sandwich panels.