Damage Behaviors of Foam Sandwiched Composite Materials Under Quasi-Static Three-point Bending

This paper reports the quasi-static three-point bending damage behaviors of foam sandwiched composites in finite element analyses (FEA) and experimental. Finite element calculations were performed to characterize the static response of foam sandwich composites with different ply angle face sheets. Quasi-static three-point bending tests were conducted with a MTS materials testing system to obtain the load–displacement curves and energy absorption under quasi-static bending. A crushable foam model was used in order to explore the mechanical behaviors of core materials, while the Hashin criterion was employed to predict the failure of the face sheets. The load–displacement curves show a satisfactory agreement between the experimental and numerical results. The finite element calculations can also be used to obtain the failure mode included the core damage, face sheet damage and face-core interface damage. It can be observed that the damage at the core material can be classified as either core cracking or core crushing. The damage of the face sheet was through matrix cracking and delamination, with fiber breakage. The significant indentation occurs as a result of the fiber breakage. The face-core interface crack was typically induced by the cracks initiated from the tensile side and propagated to the compressive side.