Applied Composite Materials (2005) 12: 165–176 © Springer 2005

DOI: 10.1007/s10443-005-1120-8

The Effect of Load and Geometry on the Failure

Modes of Sandwich Beams

M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS and E. E. GDOUTOS

School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, GR-671 00 Xanthi, Greece
e-mail: egdoutos@civil.duth.gr

Abstract. Facing compressive failure, facing wrinkling and core shear failure are the most com-
monly encountered failure modes in sandwich beams with facings made of composite materials. The
occurrence and sequence of these failure modes depends on the geometrical dimensions, the form
of loading and type of support of the beam. In this paper the above three failure modes in sandwich
beams with facings made of carbon/epoxy composites and cores made of aluminum honeycomb
and two types of foam have been investigated. Two types of beams, the simply supported and the
cantilever have been considered. Loading included concentrated, uniform and triangular. It was
found that in beams with foam core facing wrinkling and core shear failure occur, whereas in beams
with honeycomb core facing compressive failure and core shear crimping take place. Results were
obtained for the dependence of failure mode on the geometry of the beam and the type of loading. The
critical beam spans for failure mode transition from core shear to wrinkling failure were established.
It was found that initiation of a particular failure mode depends on the properties of the facing and
core materials, the geometrical configuration, the type of support and loading of sandwich beams.

Key words: sandwich structures, failure modes, wrinkling, shear failure, carbon/epoxy composites,
foam materials, aluminum honeycomb.

1. Introduction
Sandwich materials consist of two thin, stiff and strong face sheets or facings
enclosing a thick, light weight core structure. The core is bonded to the facings
with adhesives such that they can act as a composite load-bearing unit. The fac-
ings carry almost all of the bending and in-plane stresses, whereas the core helps
to stabilize the facings and carries the shear stresses. By separating the facings
using a low density core, the moment of inertia of the panel is increased which
results in improved bending stiffness. Commonly used materials for facings are
composite laminates and metals, while cores are made of metallic and non-metallic
honeycombs, cellular foams, balsa wood or trusses.
The mechanical behavior of sandwich structures depends on the properties of
the facings, the core and the adhesive bonding of the core to the skins, as well as
on the loading conditions and geometrical dimensions. Sandwich beams subjected
to a combination of bending, shear and in-plane loading exhibit various failure
modes. They include tensile or compressive failure of the facings, debonding at the
166 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

core/facing interface, indentation failure under localized loads, shear core failure,
wrinkling of the compression facing and global buckling. Initiation of a particular
failure mode depends on the constituent material properties, geometry and type
of loading. Following initiation of a failure mode, this mode may trigger another
mode until catastrophic failure occurs. For the prediction of failure modes and
their initiation a thorough stress analysis must first be conducted. The results of
stress analysis are coupled with appropriate failure criteria applied in the critical
regions of the beam. A general review of failure modes in sandwich structures
was presented by Allen [1], Hall and Robson [2] and Zenkert [3]. The various
failure modes have been analyzed and critical failure loads have been determined.
Recently, failure modes in composite sandwich beams consisted of carbon/epoxy
facings and honeycomb or foam cores have been studied by Gdoutos et al. [4–6].
In the present paper an investigation of failure modes of a composite sandwich
beam including facing compressive failure, facing wrinkling and core shear failure
was undertaken. The cases of simply supported and cantilever beams subjected
to a concentrated, uniform or triangular load were studied. Results were obtained
for the dependence of failure mode on the geometry of the beam and the type of
loading.

2. Stress Field in Sandwich Beams

Consider a sandwich beam of rectangular cross section with facings of equal thick-
ness subjected to a bending moment, M, and shear force, V . The facing and core
materials are assumed to display linear elastic behavior. For relatively thin facings
and relatively low core stiffness, the bending moment is mainly taken up by the
facings, while the shear stress is mainly taken up by the core. The compressive or
tensile facing stress, σf , is
M M
σf ∼
= ∼
= (1)
bhf (hf + hc ) bhf hc
where b is the width of the beam and hf and hc are the thickness of facings and
core, respectively.
Due to strain compatibility at the facing/core interface the maximum com-
pressive or tensile stress in the core, σc , that occurs at the facing/core interface
is


∼ M Ec
σc = (2)
bhf hc Ef
where Ef and Ec are Young’s modulus of facing and core material, respectively.
The shear stress, τc , in the core is
V
τc = (3)
bhc
where V is the shear force.
FAILURE MODES OF SANDWICH BEAMS 167

3. Compression Facing versus Core Shear Failure

When the normal stress in the core is small relative to the shear stress, it can be
assumed that core failure occurs when the shear stress reaches its critical value.
On the other hand, failure in the facings occurs when the normal tensile or com-
pressive stress reaches its critical value. For composite sandwich beams made of
carbon/epoxy facings the compressive strength of the composite is lower than its
tensile strength [3] and, therefore, the critical value of the facing stress is the com-
pressive strength. In the following it is assumed that the beam is adequately rein-
forced locally at the points of load application and supports, to suppress premature
failure due to indentation. Under such circumstances we obtain from Equations (1)
and (3) that failure mode transition from core shear failure to compression facing
failure occurs when
Mmax Ff
= (4)
Vmax hf Fcs
where Mmax and Vmax are the maximum bending moment and shear force of the
beam, Ff is the facing strength in compression and Fcs is the core shear strength.
The maximum bending moment and the maximum shear force may take place in
different cross sections of the beam.
Equation (4) may be put in the form
L Ff
=C (5)
hf Fcs
where L is the length of the simply supported or cantilever beam and C is a constant
that depends on the form of the beam and the type of the applied load. Values of C
for a simply supported beam loaded in three-point bending, by a uniform load and
a triangular load, and a cantilever beam loaded by an end load, a uniform load and
a triangular load peaking at its built-in end are given in Table I.
When the left hand term of Equation (5) is smaller than the right hand term,
failure occurs by core shear, whereas in the reverse case failure occurs by facing
compression. Equation (5) suggests that in the plane with axes L/ hf and Ff /Fcs the

Table I. Values of C (Equation (5)).

168 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

Figure 1. Failure envelopes for failure mode transition from core shear failure to compression
facing failure for a simply supported and a cantilever beam subjected to a concentrated load.

envelope separating core shear failure from facing compressive failure is a straight
line starting from the origin. Failure mode transition according to Equation (5) is
shown in Figure 1 for a simply supported and a cantilever beam under concentrated
load. From Figure 1 we observe that core shear failure dominates compression
facing failure for small values of L/ hf and Ff /Fcs . This should be expected since
the role of shear relative to bending in the failure of the sandwich beam is more
pronounced for small beam lengths and/or large facing thicknesses. In the latter
case the bending stresses in the facings are reduced and, therefore, core fails first
by shear. Furthermore, core shear failure occurs first for small core shear strengths
and/or large compression facing strengths. From Figure 1 we observe that in the
plane with axes L/ hf and Ff /Fcs the straight line separating the area of core shear
failure from the area of facing compressive failure rotates toward the L/ hf axis
and, therefore, the area of the core shear failure increases in both the simply sup-
ported and the cantilever beams as the load changes from concentrated to uniform
to triangular.

4. Compression Facing Wrinkling versus Core Shear Failure

Compression facing wrinkling is a common failure mode of sandwich beams sub-

jected to compression or bending. It is a localized short-wavelength buckling (wrin-
kling) of the compression face. Wrinkling may be viewed as buckling of the com-
pression facing that is supported on one side by the core. Modeling of facing
wrinkling may be studied by simulating the core as an elastic continuum.
FAILURE MODES OF SANDWICH BEAMS 169

For the case when the beam is subjected to bending Heath [7] gave the following
expression for the calculation of the critical wrinkling stress
 1/2
2 hf Ec3 Ef1
σcr = (6)
3 hc (1 − ν13 ν31 )
where Ec3 is the core elastic modulus in the rise direction and νij (i, j = 1, 3) is
the core’s Poisson ratio (associated with loading in the i-direction and strain in the
j -direction).
In the case when the sandwich beam is subjected to bending and shear a more
appropriate relation that takes into account the influence of the transverse shear
modulus of the core was provided by Hoff and Mautner [8]. It has the form

σcr = c(Ef1 Ec3 Gc13 )1/3 (7)

where Gc13 is the transverse shear modulus of the core. The constant c takes the
values 0.5, 0.6, or 0.65. From the above expression we observe that the critical
wrinkling stress depends only on the elastic moduli of the facing and core materi-
als. Note that the effect of the core material enters in the expression through two
moduli, while the effect of the facing enters through one modulus. This indicates
that the effect of the core material on the wrinkling stress is more pronounced than
the effect of the facing material. Thus in sandwich construction it is essential to
use core materials with high elastic modulus in the transverse direction. Such core
materials help also prevent indentation failure of the facing of the sandwich beam
loaded by concentrated loads.

5. Constituent Materials
The sandwich beam facings were unidirectional carbon/epoxy plates (AS4/3501-
6), of equal thickness fabricated separately by autoclave molding. Uniaxial tensile
and compressive tests were conducted in the longitudinal direction in order to
obtain the relevant constitutive behavior of the facing material [9].
Three core materials were investigated. One of them was aluminum honey-
comb (PAMG 8.1-3/16 001-P-5052, Plascore Co.). The other core materials were
two types of PVC closed-cell foam, Divinycell H100 and H250, with densities
of 100 and 250 kg/m3 , respectively. The aluminum honeycomb material is highly
anisotropic with much higher stiffness and strength in the through-the-thickness
direction (cell direction) than in the in-plane directions. The three principal moduli
E1 , E2 and E3 (along the cell axis) were obtained by means of four-point bend-
ing, three-point bending and pure compression tests [10]. The out-of-plane shear
modulus G13 was obtained by means of a rail shear test [10]. The lower density
foam core material, Divinycell H100, exhibits nearly isotropic behavior. The higher
density foam, Divinycell H250, exhibits pronounced axisymmetric anisotropy with
much higher stiffness and strength in the cell direction (3-direction). Some charac-
170 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

Table II. Properties of constituent materials.

Facing Honeycomb FM-73 Foam Foam

core adhesive core core
(H100) (H250)

Density, ρ, kg/m3 1, 620 129 1, 180 100 250

Thickness, h, mm 1.01 25.4 0.05 25.4 25.4
Longitudinal modulus, E1 , MPa 147, 000 8.3 1, 700 120 228
Transverse modulus, E3 , MPa 10, 350 2, 415 139 403
Transverse shear modulus, G13 , MPa 7, 600 580 110 48 117
Longitudinal compressive 1, 930 0.2 1.7 4.5
Strength, F1c , MPa
Transverse compressive 240 11.8 1.9 6.3
Strength, F3c , MPa
Transverse shear strength, F13 , MPa 71 3.5 33 1.6 5.0

teristic properties of the sandwich constituent materials investigated are tabulated

in Table II.

6. Results
The critical wrinkling stress for the honeycomb core calculated from Equation (7)
when the sandwich beam is subjected to bending and shear loads using the val-
ues of material constants of Table I is 2,952 MPa. This stress is higher than the
compressive strength of the facings of 1,930 MPa. Thus the sandwich beam with
honeycomb core does not fail by wrinkling, but by facing compressive failure. This
is due to the high value of the elastic modulus of the aluminum honeycomb core in
the transverse direction.
The critical wrinkling stress for the two types of foam core materials studied in
this work is according to Equation (7) 497 MPa for Divinycell H100 and 953 MPa
for Divinycell H250. These critical stresses are lower than the critical failure stress
of the materials in compression. Therefore, contrary to the honeycomb core, sand-
wich beams with Divinycell foam core do not fail by compression facing failure,
but by compression facing wrinkling. Thus the dominant failure modes are core
shear failure and compression facing wrinkling.
The critical failure load for both failure modes depends on the end supports of
the beam (simply supported or cantilever), its length and the type of loading. Fig-
ure 2 presents the variation of the critical load, Pcr , versus span length for initiation
of core shear failure and compression facing wrinkling for a simply supported beam
loaded by a concentrated load P for Divinycell H100 and H250 core materials. The
critical failure load of the beam is the smaller of the two values predicted by the
FAILURE MODES OF SANDWICH BEAMS 171

Figure 2. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a simply supported sand-
wich beam subjected to a concentrated load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell
H100 and H250 are presented.

two failure modes. The two curves of the critical load versus beam span intersect
at a critical span at which transition from one failure mode to the other takes place.
For beam spans smaller than the critical span failure initiation of the beam takes
place by core shear failure, while for beam span greater than the critical span failure
starts by compression facing wrinkling. Note that the critical span for failure mode
transition from core shear failure to compression facing wrinkling is higher for the
H100 than the H250 core material. This is explained from the fact that H100 has
lower shear strength than H250, and therefore, the realm of core shear failure for
H100 is larger than for H250. For both materials for short spans core shear failure
occurs first, while for high spans failure starts by compression facing wrinkling.
Results for a simply supported beam loaded by a uniform and a triangular load are
shown in Figures 3 and 4. Figures 5–7 present analogous results for a cantilever
beam subjected to a concentrated, uniform and triangular load. Finally, Table III
presents values of the critical beam span for which transition from core shear failure
to compression facing wrinkling tales place. Note that the critical span increases
which means that the realm of failure initiation by core shear failure increases as
the type of load changes from concentrated, to uniform, to triangular. Also, note
that the critical span is smaller for the cantilever than the simply supported beam
for the same type of loading. This is explained from the fact that in the cantilever
the shear force to bending moment ratio is higher than in the simply supported
beam subjected to the same type of loading.
An experimental investigation of the failure modes of composite sandwich
beams was undertaken by Daniel et al. [4]. Failure initiation by compression facing
or wrinkling failure and core shear failure has been observed. Experimental results
172 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

Figure 3. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a simply supported sand-
wich beam subjected to a uniform load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell H100
and H250 are presented.

Figure 4. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a simply supported sand-
wich beam subjected to a triangular load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell H100
and H250 are presented.

for the failure load of sandwich beams with the same facing and core materials as
those used in the present work have been obtained, under three- and four-point
bending and cantilever beams under end concentrated loads. The experimental
results were in close agreement with theoretical predictions based on the models
used in the present investigation.
FAILURE MODES OF SANDWICH BEAMS 173

Figure 5. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a cantilever sandwich beam
subjected to a concentrated load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell H100 and
H250 are presented.

Figure 6. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a cantilever sandwich beam
subjected to a uniform load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell H100 and H250
are presented.

7. Conclusions
An investigation of the initiation of failure in composite sandwich beams was
undertaken. Simply supported and cantilever beams subjected to concentrated, uni-
174 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

Figure 7. Critical load versus span length for failure initiation for a cantilever sandwich beam
subjected to a triangular load. Results for two core foam materials Divinycell H100 and H250
are presented.

Table III. Critical values lcr , of beam span for failure mode transition from core shear failure to
compression facing wrinkling.

form and triangular loads have been analyzed. The facings of the sandwich beams
were made of a carbon/epoxy composite and the core of an aluminum honeycomb
and two types of foam under commercial names Divinycell H100 and H250. Three
failure modes including facing failure in compression, compression facing wrin-
kling and core shear failure have been studied. It was found that the initiation of
a particular failure mode depends on the constituent materials of the sandwich
beam, its geometrical dimensions, form of loading, geometry and type of support.
From the results of the present investigation the following conclusions may be
drawn:
FAILURE MODES OF SANDWICH BEAMS 175

i. Failure initiation of sandwich beams with aluminum honeycomb core occurs

by failure of the facing in compression or the core in shear and never by fail-
ure by wrinkling. This behavior is due to the high stiffness of the aluminum
honeycomb in the transverse direction.
ii. Core shear failure dominates facing failure in compression for relative small
beam spans with respect to facing thickness and relative large values of the
facing strength in compression with respect to the shear strength of the core.
iii. Failure envelopes for failure transition from core shear failure to facing failure
in compression are straight lines in the plane of facing compressive strength
relative to core shear strength and beam span relative to facing thickness. The
lines rotate toward the beam span axis as we move from the concentrated
to the uniform and to the triangular load. The slope of these lines with re-
spect the beam span axis is lower for the simply supported beam than for the
cantilever.
iv. Sandwich beams with foam core fail by compression facing wrinkling or by
core shear failure and never by failure of the facing in compression. This is
explained from the low stiffness of the foam in the transverse direction.
v. There is a critical beam span at which transition of failure from core shear
to compression facing wrinkling takes place. For beam spans smaller than
the critical span failure initiation of the beam takes place by core shear fail-
ure, while for beam spans greater than the critical span failure initiates by
compression facing wrinkling.
vi. The critical length for failure mode transition from core shear failure to com-
pression facing wrinkling is higher for the H100 than the H250 core material.
vii. For short spans core failure occurs first, while for high spans compression
facing wrinkling takes place.
viii. The critical length for failure mode transition from core shear to facing wrin-
kling failure increases as the type of load changes from concentrated, to
uniform, to triangular.
ix. The above critical length is smaller for the cantilever than for the simply
supported beam for the same type of loading.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge TSMEDE (Grants Nos. 1091 and 1294)
for providing funding for this research work.

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176 M. S. KONSTA-GDOUTOS AND E. E. GDOUTOS

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