Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 21692180

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Experimental characterization and numerical simulations of a syntactic-foam/glass-bre composite sandwich

Alberto Corigliano a,*, Egidio Rizzi b, Enrico Papa a
a

di Ingegneria Leonardo, Politecnico di Milano, piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Facolta b di Ingegneria di Taranto, Politecnico di Bari, via Orabona 4, 70125 Bari, Italy Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Facolta Received 7 February 2000; accepted 11 May 2000

Abstract This note presents the main results of an experimental and numerical investigation on the mechanical behaviour of a composite sandwich primarily designed for naval engineering applications. The skins of the sandwich are made of glass-bre/polymer-matrix composites; their interior layers are connected with interwoven threads called piles which cross the sandwich core. Such core consists of a syntactic foam made by hollow glass microspheres embedded in an epoxy matrix. Experimental tests and numerical nite element (FE) simulations on both the sandwich composite and its separate components have been performed in order to characterise fully the complex mechanical behaviour of such a highly heterogeneous material. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: A. Glass bre; Composite sandwich; Syntactic foam; Mechanical tests; Numerical simulations (FE)

1. Introduction Composite sandwiches are commonly adopted in marine and aeronautical engineering for structures or structural elements requiring high stiness and strength, mainly to exural loads, together with low specic weight (see e.g. [15]). Frequently, the weakest point of such composite elements consists in the possible debonding (delamination) of the external facings of the sandwich (skins), which must possess considerable rigidity and strength, from the central part of the sandwich (core), which is required to possess a low specic weight and an adequate shear stiness. This note presents the salient results of an experimental and numerical study on the mechanical behaviour of a syntactic-foam/glass-bre composite sandwich primarily designed as a lightweight material for naval engineering applications (Fig. 1). The sandwich core material is a syntactic foam consisting of hollow glass microspheres embedded in an epoxy resin matrix, whereas the sandwich skins are glass-bre/polymer-matrix composites. To reduce the risk of possible delamination damage, the interior layers of the skins are interconnected
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-2-2399-4244; fax: +39-2-23994220. E-mail address: coriglia@stru.polimit.it (A. Corigliano).

to each other by glass bre piles which cross the syntactic foam core. Actually, the sandwich under study is in practice a monolithic element made by a sandwichfabric in which the syntactic foam core is inated until the proper sandwich thickness is obtained. The mechanical characterization of this highly heterogeneous material (or rather, structural element) has been carried out at the Department of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, through the following sequence of steps: (a) experimental characterization of the syntactic foam material adopted for the core; (b) development and numerical exploitation of engineeringoriented constitutive models for the foam behaviour; (c) experimental testing of the sandwich panels and their single components; (d) numerical FE simulation of the sandwich panels under three- and four-point bending tests. The present paper focusses on the results obtained through phases (c) and (d) of the above program; whereas the mechanical characterization of the syntactic foam emerging from phases (a) and (b) is described in detail in a companion paper [6]. A separate, comprehensive presentation and discussion exclusively on the experimental results and techniques employed on both syntactic foam and sandwich materials is further available to the interested reader in [7]. The paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, the sandwich under study is fully described. The experimental

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Fig. 1. The sandwich under study: (a) schematic representation; (b) side picture of the three-dimensional fabric; (c) side view of a piece of the nal sandwich after foam ination.

results concerning the uniaxial tension/compression behaviour of the syntactic foam, the tensile response of the composite external skins and the mechanical characterization of the entire sandwich structure are presented in Section 3. Section 4 is dedicated to the numerical simulations of both three and four point bending (TPB, FPB) tests carried out on the sandwich specimens. Closing remarks and future perspectives are briey outlined in Section 5. 2. The sandwich under study The syntactic-foam/glass-bre composite sandwich under study was manufactured by a former branch of Intermarine S.p.A. (Italy). The sandwich structure is depicted schematically in Fig. 1a. The sandwich skeleton is made by a sandwich-fabric, produced by Parabeam (The Netherlands), studied in depth in the framework of a BRITE EURAM project (AFICOSS Advanced Fabrics for Integrally-woven Composite Sandwich Structures [8]). It is constituted by two plainwave fabrics maintained, through pre-impregnation, at a xed distance by interwoven threads called piles [8]. A side view of the sandwich-fabric is shown in Fig. 1b. The syntactic foam core to be injected in the sandwichfabric was manufactured by the same industry which furnished the whole sandwich, under the trademark Tencara 2000TM. The foam is assembled with an epoxy resin matrix which embeds hollow air-lled glass micro-

spheres. The matrix is made with SP Ampreg 20TM epoxy resin treated with SP AmpregTM UltraSlow hardener. The air-lled hollow glass microspheres, named 3M ScotchliteTM Glass Bubbles, type K1, are manufactured with a water-resistant, chemically stable, borosilicate glass. Bubbles have an average diameter of 70 mm and an average wall thickness of 0.58 mm. The syntactic foam is prepared by mixing resin and hardener under vacuum and by adding microspheres repeatedly until full homogenization. The density of the resulting syntactic foam averages 0.55 g/cm3 (see [6,9] for all the details). To increase the stiness of the 3D fabric facings, two additional layers of bi-dimensional fabrics were simply laminated on them: a non-directional glass reinforced plastic (GRP) fabric, called MAT 300TM (manufactured by Vetrotex, Italy) and a plain-weave GRP fabric, called ROVING 900TM (manufactured by Chomarat, France); the ensemble of the fabrics constitutes the so-called ROVIMAT 1200TM tissue (thickness 2.5 mm). These additional layers will be called extra skins in the following. The global thickness of the sandwich is t 15 mm; a side view is shown in Fig. 1c. As can be observed from Fig. 1, in the nal sandwich supplied by the producer for testing, the piles were not completely stretched as they should be after a correct manufacturing procedure, but they were inclined at about 45 . This fact has important consequences on the mechanical behaviour of the tested sandwich, as will be discussed later in Section 3. Table 1 collects some nominal mechanical properties of the single sandwich components as given by the manufacturers. The data in Table 1 refer to uniaxial tension or compression tests. Due to the fact that the ROVING 900TM is a plain weave directional fabric, data are given for both loading in the weft and in the warp directions. 3. Experimental results on the sandwich and its components All the mechanical tests on the sandwich and its components described in this Section have been performed on an MTS 329.10 S testing machine, with axial and torsional actuators. The axial jack has a static capacity of 100 kN, with a maximum stroke of 150 mm and incorporates a linear variable dierential transformer (LVDT). The torsional jack is mounted in line with respect to the axial jack. It has a static capacity of 1100 Nm, with a maximum stroke of 50 and with an angular dierential transformer (ADT) mounted on it. 3.1. Uniaxial tension/compression tests on the syntactic foam This section concerns the uniaxial tests performed on the syntactic foam Tencara 2000TM which constitutes

A. Corigliano et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 21692180 Table 1 Mechanical nominal data on the single sandwich components as provided by the manufacturera Tension
t w 'mx

2171

Compression 4t fil 7 0.92 1.7 1.5 Et w 1812 14 200 17 000 8050

t 'mx w

4t fil 7 8.9

Et w 1414 17 000 18 100

Syntactic foam Roving 900/53/300TM MAT300TM

a

Weft Warp

16 175 210 98

32 215 235

Data for ROVING fabric are given for loading in both weft and warp directions.

the core of the sandwich. The material specimens were prepared directly by the manufacturer. For the compression tests, specimen shapes and sizes were determined according to UNI 6132-72 for concrete and to ASTM D 695 M-91 for composites (Fig. 2a). Guideline for tensile specimens geometry was the ASTM D 638 for composites (Fig. 2b). The stress/strain curves from the uniaxial tests are reported in Fig. 2c. The compression behaviour is rather ductile, with a softening post-peak branch which tends to stabilize on an horizontal plateau at residual strength. Loading/

Fig. 2. Uniaxial tension/compression tests on the syntactic foam (tension positive): (a) shape and size of the specimen used for compression (dimensions in mm); (b) shape and size of the specimen used for tension (dimensions in mm); (c) stress/strain curves.

unloading paths performed in some of the compression tests showed that the elastic stiness degradation is not particularly signicant [7]. The collapse mechanism is preceded by strain localization along a shear band inclined to an angle of about 45 with respect to the loading axis: interlocking and friction govern the behavior after the onset of strain localization and are responsible for the residual strength that can be observed in the stress/strain curves (Fig. 2c). The response under tension is instead perfectly brittle with rupture on a section perpendicular to the loading axis; only one test displayed fracture in the central part of the specimen; the other two tests exhibited breakage in zones near the tapered sections and showed slightly lower tensile strength. The values of experimental elastic stinesses and strengths are reported in Table 2, together with the nominal values furnished by the manufacturer, repeated from Table 1 for the sake of comparison. Tensile t 15X6 MPa, is about 55% of the comstrength, 'mx c 28X4 MPa; Young's modulus pressive strength, 'mx t in tension, E 2X2 GPa, is about 38% larger than Young's modulus in compression, E 1X6 GPa. The phenomenological feature of bimodularity Et T E is not pointed out in the available literature on syntactic foams (see the references quoted in [6]). Part of the difference should be attributed to the fact that the specimens tested in tension belonged to a second set of syntactic foam specimens which displayed lower degree of porosity and compressive stiness about 15% higher with respect to the set tested in compression. The remaining 20% dierence should be mainly explained in terms of the presence of air bubbles between matrix and ller. In fact, further experimental tests on foams prepared with more careful manufacturing techniques did not show appreciable dierences in elastic stinesses [7]. Poisson's ratio was instead rather unaected by the sign of the applied stress: the average value of # 0X34 was recorded. In the following no consideration will be further taken of the syntactic foam bimodularity. Moreover, as explained in Sections 3.3 and 4, the elastic modulus attributed to the core for numerical simulations has been chosen equal to that obtained in atwise compression tests on the sandwich.

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Table 2 Experimental mean values and nominal values of the syntactic foam properties in uniaxial tension/compression Nominal value provided by the manufacture Tension
t 'mx w 4t fil 7 Et w #t 'mx w 4 fil 7 E w #

3.3. Flatwise compression tests on the sandwich The C365-94 ASTM [10] was followed to perform atwise compression (FC) tests on the sandwich. The norm covers the determination of the compressive strength and of the elastic modulus of sandwich cores in the direction normal to the plane of the structure. According to the norm, the specimens, of square geometry with sides of 25 mm (Fig. 5a), were loaded under displacement control at a rate of 0.5 mm/min. The displacement

Experimental mean value 15.6 0.7 2200 0.34 28.4 3.5 1600 0.34

16 0.92 1812 32 8.9 1414

Compression

Beside the uniaxial tests, biaxial compression tests and TPB tests on notched specimens were also performed on the syntactic foam. The rst suggest an eggshaped failure domain typical of frictional geomaterials; the second showed a quasi-brittle response during fracture (see [6, 7]). 3.2. Tension tests on the composite extra-skins Uniaxial tension tests were performed on specimens of 1 mm thickness made with the same material of the extra skins (ROVIMAT). The ASTM D 3039 was followed, which provides specimen shape and size (Fig. 3a), suggestions on loading xtures and a way to classify the dierent failure modes. The specimens, which were directly provided by the manufacturer, were instrumented with glued electric strain gauges: because of the size of the fabric repeated unit cell (10 mm), large grid strain gauges were choosen and only few specimens were equipped with an additional transverse device to detect the transversal strain. Because of marked anisotropy, seven specimens were cut parallel to each of the two main warp and weft directions and were tested under displacement control at a 1 mm/mm loading rate. As shown in Fig. 3b, where the results of a typical test are reported, the composite skin shows an almost linearelastic brittle behaviour with a slight deviation near failure, caused by the successive partialization of the cross-section; just before the complete rupture of the fabric the threads fail one after another causing a rapid decreasing of strength. The failure is sudden and brittle and displays the typical pattern shown in Fig. 4. The elastic stinesses and strengths of the composite skins as measured through the tests are compared in Table 3 with the nominal values given by the producer. The composite tested shows a less marked anisotropy in the elastic moduli and a more marked one in the values of strength with respect to the nominal data (see also Fig. 3b).

Fig. 3. Composite extra-skin tested under tension: (a) shape and size of the specimen used (dimensions in mm); (b) axial and transverse stress/strain responses under tension in both weft and warp directions.

Fig. 4. Composite extra-skin tested under tension. Picture of a specimen after rupture.

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was measured by four LVDTs applied to the loading plate (Fig. 5b). Fig. 5c shows a side and a top view of a specimen after the compression test. Fig. 6 shows the stress/strain experimental curves corresponding to eight dierent tests. The rst seven plots are named FC1-FC7; the last one, labeled FCC, has been obtained by prolonging the test until the maximum available limits for the loading device: only part of the total response is shown in the gure. The values of the

Table 3 Experimental mean values and nominal values of the extra-skins in uniaxial tension for loading in the weft and warp direction Nominal value provided by the manufacture Warp
t 'mx w 4t fil 7 Et w #t t 'mx w 4t fil 7 Et w #t

Experimental mean value 267 2.3 14 707 0.20 187 2.0 13 153 0.21

210 1.5 17 000 175 1.7 14 200

Weft

stresses corresponding to a 2% strain (as prescribed by the norm) and of the elastic moduli are given in Table 4. At dierence with the plain syntactic foam (Section 3.1), the sandwich core under atwise compression shows a ductile behaviour. Moreover, after a plastic plateau, a strong locking is shown due to the following the complete compactness reached and to the threedimensional containment eect created by the stier skins and by the piles. Another eect which can justify the increased ductility of the core compared with that of the simple foam is represented by the piles inclination. During loading, the sandwich may in fact undergo a shear deformation with relative sliding of the external skins which is contrasted by the piles. It is interesting to remark that syntactic foams loaded in triaxial compression show similar qualitative locking behaviours (see, e.g. [11]). Comparing the values in Table 4 with the compressive elastic properties of the foam (Table 2), it can be noticed that the mean value of the stiness of the syntactic foam core (with the sandwich-fabric piles) is about 21% lower than that of the plain foam. This reduction in stiness is again to be attributed to the presence of the piles, which preclude full monoliticity of the foam: the epoxy resin, mixed with the glass bubbles, is in practice a viscous uid which is not easy to inject in the narrow empty space inside the sandwich-fabric. In [7], the estimated values of the voids percentages in the core as a result of the presence of piles are reported and it is shown that the mechanical properties of the sandwich decrease at increasing void percentage; i.e. the responses in Fig. 6 vary from FC1 with a void percentage of about 22% to FC7 with a void percentage of about 30%.

Fig. 5. Flatwise compression (FC) tests on the sandwich: (a) shape and size of the specimen used (dimensions in mm); (b) the specimen mounted on the testing device; (c) side and top views of a specimen after the test.

Fig. 6. Stress/strain response of the sandwich under atwise compression (eight tests, one carried out until maximum stroke is reached).

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Table 4 Experimental data of the sandwich in atwise compression (FC) tests FC1
'2 7 w E w

FC2 21.31 1054

FC3 21.4 1290

FC4 16.98 1053

FC5 26.42 1765

FC6 15.57 845

FC7 15.88 687

Average value 20.04 1120

22.72 1148

3.4. Flatwise tension tests on the sandwich The atwise tension (FT) tests were performed according to the ASTM C 297-94 [12], on square specimens with 25 mm side, hence the same specimens used for the atwise compression tests (Fig. 7a). The test method covers the evaluation of the bond resistance between core and skins in a sandwich structure. As suggested by the norm, the tests were carried out by using self-aligning loading xtures, composed by a couple of sti loading blocks bonded to the skins by a suitable adhesive (Fig. 7b). All the specimens failed due to delamination of the weakest interface in the series arrangement, namely the ROVIMAT/sandwich-fabric interface (Fig. 7c).

t The values of stress at debonding 'mx are given in Table 5 for ve tests (FT1FT5). The data of Table 5 show the weakness of the bond between the sandwichfabric and the ROVIMAT. The failure of the skin/core bond was also investigated by edgewise compression tests, which are separately described in [7], and by exural tests as discussed below in Section 3.5. The weakness of the ROVIMAT/sandwich-fabric bond can be mainly attributed to the production technology which consisted in a simple lamination. On the light of the experimental observations, this manufacturing technique appears to be rather inadequate and should be improved or substituted by a more ecient one.

3.5. Three- and four-point bending tests on the sandwich Three- and four-point bending (TPB and FPB) tests on at sandwich panels were conducted according to the ASTM C 393-94 [13], in view to determine the sandwich exural stiness, the core shear modulus G and the core shear strength (mx . Rectangular plates 110 mm long and 30 mm wide were cut from the 16 mm thick sandwich panel. Fig. 8 displays specimens and testing devices. The sandwich panels were prepared by cutting them out of a larger panel in two dierent ways with respect to the piles orientations in the core. A rst group of specimens was prepared so that the piles were inclined along the specimen length, and a second group so that the piles were inclined along the specimen width. From the dierence in the recorded mechanical properties of the two groups, it can be inferred that the piles inuence the core mechanical properties. In Table 6 are given values of G and (mx , as derived from the tests. The core shear modulus G was calculated from the measured deections of the specimens on the three-point bending tests as suggested by the ASTM standard. The core shear strength (mx was determined from both TPB and FPB tests. The data collected in Table 6 show that the specimens under FPB display an higher shear resistance of the core; this can be partially explained by observing that
Table 5 Experimental data of the sandwich in atwise tension (FT) tests

Fig. 7. Flatwise tension (FT) test on the sandwich: (a) shape and size of the specimen used (dimensions in mm); (b) the specimen mounted on the testing device; (c) three specimens after testing showing delamination failure.

FT1
t 'mx w

FT2 4.11

FT3 8.03

FT4 4.32

FT5 6.47

Average value 5.85

6.34

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the risk of local core crushing under the load points is lower when the load is applied through two points rather than one. Dierent kinds of load/displacement responses are shown in Figs. 9 and 10 for TPB and FPB, respectively. The dierence in the responses is a result of the various failure mechanisms that may separately appear in the sandwich panel and lead to its nal collapse. The main characteristic mechanisms reported for the specimen are (Fig. 11ad): (a) unsymmetric collapse with the formation of a single 45 inclined crack in the core; (b) symmetric collapse with development of two 45 inclined

cracks in the core; (c) extra skin collapse in tension; (d) extra skin delamination. The kind of rupture mechanism is strongly inuenced by the piles inclination. The single crack follows the piles slope when the piles are inclined along the length of the specimen (Fig. 11a); some specimens with piles inclined along the specimen width showed the same behaviour, whereas other specimens loaded on FPB conguration failed with double symmetric crack opening (Fig. 11b). As shown in Figs. 10 and 11, the sandwich structure can be loaded after the core failure: at higher loads the failure extends to the skin under tension or, in some cases, to the skin/core bond under shear.

Fig. 9. Load/displacement curves of TPB tests. Failure mechanisms of core rupture and lower skin rupture appear subsequently during the test.

Fig. 8. Flexural tests on the sandwich: (a) shape and size of the specimen used (dimensions in mm); (b) testing device for three-point-bending (TPB); (c) testing device for four-point-bending (FPB).

Table 6 Experimental data of the sandwich in TPB and FPB tests Piles inclined along the specimen length TPB FPB G (MPa) (mx (MPa) (mx (MPa) 229 12.6 13.7 Piles inclined along the specimen length 167 12.8 15.8 Fig. 10. Load/displacement curves of FPB tests. Dierent failure mechanisms characterise the single test.

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Fig. 11. Recorded rupture mechanisms in TPB and FPB tests.

4. Numerical FE simulations of the three- and fourpoint-bending tests The purpose of this section is to present the numerical FE simulations of the TPB and FPB tests on the sandwich. The numerical model adopted, described in Section 4.1, is based on rather simplifying assumptions. Such choice has been made in order to check the possibility to simulate the main rupture mechanisms observed in the tests by making use of a commercial code, with the addition of few, ad-hoc developed, procedures. Indeed, the industrial-oriented simulations presented in Section 4.2 show the potentiality of the simplied procedure adopted here. All the numerical simulations have been performed with the commercial nite element code ABAQUS [14]. 4.1. Numerical nite-element strategy and material modelling From the experimental results of Section 3.5 it can be deduced that the main rupture mechanisms which may develop in the TPB and FPB tests are the formation of macroscopic cracks in the core or at the interface core/ extra-skins (delamination) and the extra-skin collapse in

tension (see Fig. 11). The purpose of the numerical simulations was therefore to correctly capture those single collapse mechanisms (and the corresponding failure loads) when considered as independent and occurring separately in the specimen. The dierent materials in the sandwich thickness were reproduced by the superposition of three strips of elements with dierent mechanical properties: two external strips representing the skins and the extra skins (3 mm thick) and a central layer for the core (9 mm thick). In order to simulate, respectively, core collapse, skin collapse or delamination, the numerical simulations were done by activating separately a simplied procedure for the simulation of the progressive damage in the core, in the skins or in the line of elements near the interface between the extra-skin and the core. The simplied procedure consists in a local stiness release at the Gauss point level, implemented through a user subroutine. When a threshold value of a scalar failure index is reached in a single Gauss point, the tensile elastic modulus Et is annihilated locally; the contribution of that Gauss point to the element stiness matrix is then brought to zero. Dierent failure indexes may be considered, either based on local strain or stress states. In the numerical calculations, a Rankine criterion was

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assumed for the simulation of damage in the core and the skins, while a control on the maximum shear stress was adopted for the strip of elements at the boundary core/lower skin for the simulation of skin debonding. The above procedure implies that the mechanical behaviour of the single constituents was assumed to be elastic/perfectly brittle as depicted schematically in Fig. 12. Moreover, in the simulations, the core was considered as homogeneous and isotropic, the presence of piles was neglected, and the skins were also considered as homogeneous and isotropic. The critical value of shear stress for the simulation of skin debonding was assumed equal to the ILSS (interlaminar shear stress) for the glass/epoxy-resin fabric: (mx 16X4 MPa, since the delamination occurred between the ROVIMATTM extra-skin and the sandwich-fabric external surface. This value of (mx was derived from previous experimental tests on laminate specimens similar to the sandwich skins considered here [15,16]). The skin and core model parameters used for the numerical simulations are collected in Table 7. The values of the elastic modulus and failure stress of the external skins were obtained from the tensile tests of the skin alone (Section 3.2 and Table 3) by averaging the experimental values obtained for loading in the warp and weft directions. The average critical-stress threshold and Poisson's ratio for the core were obtained from the uniaxial tension tests on the foam (Section 3.1 and Table 2). The

elastic stiness of the core was instead taken from the FC tests on sandwich specimens (Section 3.3 and Table 4), since it has been observed that the presence of piles modies the Young's modulus with respect to the value of the pure syntactic foam: the recorded ratio Eore aEfom is in fact about 0.63. The numerical analyses were conducted under the assumption of plane strain, since the specimen width to span ratio is equal to 0.5 (Fig. 8a). Although the specimen geometry and loading congurations were symmetrical, since the behaviour at rupture was unsymmetrical in some cases, the whole cross-section was modelled. To simulate single, unsymmetric, crack propagation, half of the section was considered indenitely elastic, while in the other half the local stiness release procedure was applied. The mesh adopted in the simulations are shown in Fig. 13a and b for a symmetric TPB case and an unsymmetric FPB one, respectively. The meshes are composed of four node plane strain elements. The loading and support rollers are simulated as rigid bodies. 4.2. Comparison between numerical and experimental results for the three- and four-point bending tests. In Fig. 13a and b the numerically computed crack patterns at the end of the analyses in the numerically simulated TPB and FPB are shown. More precisely, in Fig. 13 the elements which were concerned in the stiness release procedure are marked in black. Crack patterns in Fig. 13 can be compared with the experimental ones in Fig. 11; from the comparison it can be observed that the crack pattern is correctly reproduced, at least qualitatively. As in the experiments, during the numerical simulations the rst elements which fail are near the edge of the loading cylinders and the crack proceeds from top to bottom and is inclined towards the lower cylindrical support. A numerical load/displacement plot obtained for the TPB test by activating the rupture criterion in the core only is compared in Fig. 14 with two experimental plots concerning TPB tests which registered unsymmetric failure in the core. The elastic stiness and the fracture load are adequately captured considering the great simplicity of the adopted model. Fig. 15 shows the comparison between experimental and numerical load/displacement plots for the FPB tests. In this case the control on the failure index is also applied only in the core elements and the specimen tested failed for unsymmetric crack propagation in the core. The results of Fig. 15 show again that the numerical analyses are in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with the experiments. Finally, in Fig. 16, two experimental load-displacement plots concerning specimen failed for extra-skin delamination are compared with a numerically simu-

Fig. 12. Schematic representation of the elastic/brittle behaviour assumed for the numerical simulations. Table 7 Mechanical data adopted for the numerical simulations of the TPB and FPB tests E (MPa) Skin Core 14 000 1100 # 0.20 0.34
t 'mx w

225 15

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lated response. The numerical analysis was carried out by activating the simplied procedure for progressive damage simulation in the strip of elements at the boundary core/lower skin.

In this case, the agreement between the numerical and the experimental failure loads is particularly good. As shown by the results displayed in Figs. 1316, the simplied procedure devised in the present analyses

Fig. 13. Finite-element meshes adopted for numerical simulations of TPB and FPB tests. Marked elements represent the numerically simulated crack pattern.

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Fig. 14. Comparison between experimental and numerical load/displacement plots for the TPB tests with core rupture. Marked lines: experiments.

leads to results which are overall in good qualitative agreement with the experimental tests. As a matter of fact, it can be noticed that the stiness release procedure was already attempted in [6] with reference to the simulation of the plain syntactic foam behaviour in notched TPB specimens; however, in that case, the numerical results were not completely satisfactory as a result of the considerable brittleness of the numerical responses which did not take advantage of the extra structural resources available here from the sandwich geometry. In the simulations of the plain foam behaviour, an alternative, more rened procedure, based on the discrete crack approach (see, e.g. [1721]) was also adopted, leading to a considerable improvement of the numerical results. Such computational procedure could also be employed here for a further renement of the present results, but this falls beyond the scope of the present simulations and comparisons to the experimental tests. 5. Closing remarks The present paper focussed on the mechanical experimental characterization and numerical simulation of a syntactic foam/glass bre composite sandwich conceived as a light-weight material for naval engineering applications. The experimental campaign conrmed the remarkable potentialities of the innovative sandwich structure with syntactic foam core and skins interconnected by transverse piles. The structured material studied appears to be well suited for naval engineering and, more generally, for advanced transportation related technologies. The use of a syntactic foam to ll the sandwich core appears to increase the sandwich stiness and strength quite remarkably with respect to lighter but weaker solutions; at the same time it furnishes a drastic weight saving with respect to a fully laminated glass-bre-reinforced plate. As a main point of remark, from the experimental study, it emerges the considerable weakness of the sandwich/extra-skins bonding. The risk of delamination of the extra skins in real engineering applications could then be quite relevant; this should be, at least partially, eliminated or reduced by improving the production technology on this specic aspect. The models chosen for the numerical simulations represent a good compromise between the conicting requirements of correctly describing the real material behaviour and of oering a cost-eective analysis tool for numerical simulations in a real industrial environment. A better agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations could be obtained by adopting more sophisticated constitutive modelling and relevant computational techniques. In particular, for the simulation of damage processes and strain localization in the

Fig. 15. Comparison between experimental and numerical load/displacement plots for the FPB tests with core rupture. Marked lines: experiments.

Fig. 16. Comparison between experimental and numerical load/displacement plots for the FPB tests with skin delamination. Marked lines: experiments.

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core, use could be made of ad-hoc formulated damage models (see, e.g. [2225]), while the phenomenon of extra-skin delamination could be captured by making use of suitable interface models (see, e.g. [2629]). Also the possible rate dependency of the sandwich mechanical behaviour should be checked and possibly simulated by means of suitable models. Acknowledgements The present paper originated from a research project between Intermarine S.p.A. and Politecnico di Milano headed by Professor Giulio Maier at the Department of Structural Engineering. At that time, author E.R. was an employee of Politecnico di Milano. The authors wish to thank Intermarine SpA for providing reference material on composites for naval engineering applications and for granting permission to publish the present results. We are grateful to Professor Giulio Maier for involving us in this research topic and for fruitful discussions on selected related subjects. We acknowledge the contributions of our former students Mara Savioli and Ilaria Schiavi who were involved in the present research during the preparation of their Laurea theses. References
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