Impact testing and simulation of composite sandwich structures for civil transportation

The impact response of sandwich panels with an improved structure to increa se their impact resistance is investigated herein. In order to compare the impact performance of sandwich structures, a specific and instrumented ball drop tester was designed and developed. Two different sandwich structures are analyzed: the first type is a classical structure composed bq a glass f iber-polyester matrix-composite skin and a foam core. The second one, speci fically developed in this research, consists of skins made from a glass fib er-phenolic matrix composite laminate and a core formed by an internal corr ugated structure of the same laminate used for the faces filled by a phenol ic foam. The latter structure was specifically designed to improve crashwor thiness for transport applications. The main results of this study are evaluation of the absorbing energy perfo rmance of the sandwich structures, subjected to a single impact, and the de velopment of criteria useful for materials selection. The corrugate sandwic h panels have shown a better performance in terms of impact energy absorbin g properties and strength respect to traditional sandwich structures. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.