Failure mechanisms of corrugated sandwich panels under transverse three-point bending

The failure mechanism of corrugated sandwich panels under three-point bending is investigated experimentally and numerically using ABAQUS/Standard. Three dominant modes of failure, viz. face buckling, face yielding and core buckling, previously reported by others, were also identified here and they were found to be affected by the face-sheet thickness, core height and the corrugation angle of the panel. It will be shown that the deformation map, and regime boundaries, theoretically predicted previously by Valdevit et al. are valid only for restricted cases when the indenter and support pins are simultaneously located at a vertex; their prediction breaks down if this condition is not met and alternative failure maps will be developed here. The indenter nose shape (flat and cylindrical), size of the indenter and the location of indentation – these were not previously investigated by others – will be shown to play a significant role on the mode of failure that a panel subsequently develops.