ISSN: 0884-6804
CODEN: JCTRER
Page Count: 4

A Stiffness-Based Approximate Method for Sizing of Nonuniform-Thickness Sandwich Components
Reifsnider, KL
Reynolds Metals Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and student, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA

Loumont, T
Reynolds Metals Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and student, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA

Abstract

The application of composite materials to a variety of commercial components is growing rapidly. A convenient construction technique for large panels and structures is sandwich construction, especially for such things as lightly loaded fuselage structures, platforms, doors, hatches, bulkheads, and other structural parts. A variety of sizing techniques for these components is available. The present technical note suggests an unusually straightforward approximate method to size certain components with nonuniform thickness and offers the advantages of simple visualization, close association with engineering performance, exploitation of previous analytical and computational results, and ease of application of the method. The concept is based on the idea of sizing simply supported nonuniform thickness components subjected to out-of-plane distributed loading in proportion to the deflection under the same loading of uniform thickness components with the same geometry.

Keywords:
nonuniform thickness, sandwich construction, composite beams, composite plates, optimization, stiffness

Paper ID: CTR10337J
DOI: 10.1520/CTR10337J
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