Effect of Static and Harmonic Loading on Honeycomb Sandwich Beam by Using Finite Element Method

The aim of this paper is to present a proposed honeycomb core shape and compare it with normal hexagonal shape core in a sandwich beam. The sandwich cores were simulated in finite element with different materials, aluminium and epoxy-carbon with six layers are used as face sheet and the results are compared to those obtained theoretically. Simulation of 3-point bending test is performed in commercial software ANSYS to verify the analytical results with the numerical results. Hence, for simplicity one layer of the skin is used on the equivalent model of sandwich for lesser computational time and more accurate evaluation. Simulation of harmonic analysis of hexagonal core and proposed core shape was carried out in frequency domain to identify the core with less deformation under high frequency and can withstand harmful effects. The proposed core shape model having the same cell numbers and material as the normal hexagonal model is compared with experimental results, it is observed that the proposed core shape model has good flexural stiffness, resonance, fatigue, and stress resistance at a higher frequency. Lastly, the bending and critical buckling loads of a sandwich beam structure subjected to thermal load and axial compression were simulated and temperature distribution across sandwich layers was investigated by finite element analysis and validated analytically. Keywords: Honeycomb; Sandwich; Static Analysis; Harmonic Analysis; Finite Element Method; Heat Flux.