Paper number 1062

DESIGN OF SANDWICH STRUCTURES WITH CURVATURE

Vincent Manet¹, Woo-Suck Han¹ and Alain Vautrin¹

1Materials and Mechanical Engineering Department
École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, 158, cours Fauriel, 42023 Saint-Étienne cedex 2, France
E-mail: {manet,han,vautrin}@emse.fr

Summary

In this paper, we present a simple and efficient post-processing method in finite element computations for the analysis of sandwich structures. This method is based on Reissner's functional which is applied locally at interfaces between layers those mechanical properties are very different. The method, valid in 2D as well as in 3D, is assessed in 2D for the computation of an U-type sandwich beam for which both the ratio of Young's modulus of the skin to that of the core and the radius of curvature vary. This example points out that the present method can be used for the design of complex structures based on finite element analysis owing to its numerical stability, i.e. its results remain accurate even using coarse meshes.

Keywords

curved beams, finite element method, interlaminar stresses, post-processing method, sandwich structures.