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Sandwitch Construction

Sandwich panel constructions have been used for decades in the automotive, marine, and aerospace industries due to their high strength to weight ratio. A sandwich panel consists of a stiff skin bonded on both sides of a lightweight core material, such as a honeycomb or foam. This allows for increased bending stiffness without significant added weight. Representative sandwich panels showed weight reductions of over 50% compared to monolithic aluminum with the same bending stiffness. While sandwich panels are commonly hand-crafted in low volumes, they are also available as flat stock materials which suppliers quality control and specify.

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61 views2 pages

Sandwitch Construction

Sandwich panel constructions have been used for decades in the automotive, marine, and aerospace industries due to their high strength to weight ratio. A sandwich panel consists of a stiff skin bonded on both sides of a lightweight core material, such as a honeycomb or foam. This allows for increased bending stiffness without significant added weight. Representative sandwich panels showed weight reductions of over 50% compared to monolithic aluminum with the same bending stiffness. While sandwich panels are commonly hand-crafted in low volumes, they are also available as flat stock materials which suppliers quality control and specify.

Uploaded by

Darwins A K
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Safety sandwich construction:

Sandwich panel constructions using metallic and polymeric honeycombs and foams have been
used for many years in the competition and high performance sectors of the automotive industry,
and there is considerable knowledge and confidence in their static, dynamic and crashworthiness
properties. However, it should be noted that with regard to vehicle structures, sandwich panels
have only been used to produce extremely limited numbers of product and have been essentially
hand-worked.

The potential advantages of polymer composites for automotive parts (high specific strength and
stiffness, corrosion resistance) are well known. Further benefits are available from the use of
sandwich construction, in which a relatively stiff, strong skin is bonded either side of a much
thicker, light weight core. Sandwich panels have been widely used for structural applications in
the marine, aerospace and performance automotive industries for several decades . Lightweight
core materials have included balsa,polymer foams and metallic, paper or polymer honeycombs.
These have been used in various combinations with skins of carbon, glass and/or aramid fibre-
reinforced polymer, as well as aluminum.The principle of sandwich construction is that bending
loads are carried by the skins, while the core transmits shear load. They enable large gains in
structural efficiency, since the thickness (and henceflexural rigidity) of panels can be increased
without significant weight penalty. Some representative properties of sandwich panels are given
in Table

Thickness(mm) Bending stiffness Weight per unit Weight per unit


perunit width area of sandwich area of
(Nm2 /m) beam(kg/m2) monolithic Al.
with same
bending
stiffness(kg/m2)
F-board 13.7 1,100 3.08 15
26.4 4,500 4.21 25
52.3 20,500 7.54 41
M-board 13.9 3,500 4.67 23
26.6 13,500 5.73 36
52.0 52,500 7.84 56
Table-Comparison of beam stiffness of ‘F -board’ (GRP skinned aluminium honeycomb), ‘M
-board’ (aluminium skinned aluminium honeycomb) and monolithic aluminium. Data courtesy
Hexcel Composites
In high performance car construction, most sandwich panel elements are vacuum
bag/autoclave moulded on a contact tool, usually in several stages (e.g. first skin; core to skin
bond; second skin). Although this permits complex shapes to be produced on low cost tooling, it
is necessarily a time consuming and labour intensive process. A high degree of cleanliness and
sophisticated process control are required, and inspection is notoriously difficult. However,
sandwich panels are also available as flat sheet, stock material. Hexcel Composites, for example,
supply arrange of honeycomb cored sheets of varying specifications which is widely used for
building cladding, air craft flooring, luggage bins and bulkheads. The use of a stock material is
attractive, since primary material quality and specification becomes the responsibility of the
supplier, not the manufacturer.
Several techniques are well established for the shaping and assembly of structural components
from flat sandwich panel
.
Some of these are illustrated in Fig. Panels may be bent to required angles by removing a defined
strip of material from the inner skin, then folding and adhesively bonding the joint.

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