David Ashby

Sandwich Panel Optimisation

Contents
Page
1
2
5
7
7

Introduction
Method
Results
Discussion
Conclusion

Introduction
The aim of this report is to determine the optimal design for a sandwich panel. A
sandwich panel is constructed of a lightweight but thick core material with a thin
but stiff skin material bonded to each side of it. This has the advantage of being
able to have an overall low density whilst achieving a high second moment of
area giving the panel a high bending stiffness. To determine an optimal design
the ideal combination of skin materials and core materials as well as their
thicknesses need to be found. The choice of skin materials are Fibre glass,
Carbon Fibre and Aluminium. The choice for cores are PVC foam (with a thickness
up to 100mm) and Aluminium Honeycomb. To determine the optimal design the
lightest panel that wont fail or deflect more than 1/150 th of its span when a line
load of 10kN/m is applied centrally to a simply supported panel spanning 4m,
needs to be found. The panel must not fail by skin failure, core shear or local
crushing.
There are
Skin
tensile
failure
six failure
modes
(shown
below in
figure 1) for
sandwich
panels
which must
Skin compressive failure
all be
considered
and will act
as the
Skin wrinkling
constraints
for the
problem.

Core shear failure

Skin-core debonding

Core crushing

Figure 1: Sandwich panel failure modes

David Ashby

Method
To determine the lightest design, excel will be used to plot failure maps for the 6
different combinations of skin and core materials. These failure maps will be a
plot of core thickness against skin thickness at the point where each of the
failure modes are met. The region where all criteria is satisfied will be identified
then a line of constant mass plotted. This line will be altered until the minimum
mass is found.
The failure modes of skin tensile failure, skin compressive failure and skin
wrinkling can be combined to give the following equation for maximum skin
stress:

max

3WL

2b c 2s c
2

3WL
8bs c s

Equation 1:

max

Where
is the maximum skin stress, W is load, b is panel breadth, c is core
thickness, s is skin thickness and L is length of the panel.
The failure modes for core shear failure and skin-core debonding can be
combined to create the following equation for the maximum core shear stress.

max

S
W

b c s 2b c s
Equation 2:

max

Where
is the maximum shear stress, W is load, S is the shear force, b is
panel breadth, c is core thickness and s is skin thickness.
The skin compressive stress required to cause wrinkling is represented with the
following equation.
Equation 3:

0.5 3 ES EC GC

Where is the skin compressive stress, Es is skin Youngs modulus, Ec is core

Youngs modulus and Gc is core shear modulus.
The maximum load that can be applied before the core will crush is represented
with the following equation.

2bs c s
Equation 4: W

David Ashby

Where W is load, b is panel breadth, s is skin thickness,

compressive strength and

is the core

is the skin tensile strength.

Finally, for 3-point bending the maximum deflection is shown with the following
equation.

d d bending d shear
Equation 5:

WL3
WL

3
3
3
4b E s h c Ec c
4b c s Gc

Where d is the deflection, W is load, b is panel breadth, h is overall panel

thickness, c is core thickness, s is skin thickness, Es is skin Youngs modulus, Ec is
core Youngs modulus and Gc is core shear modulus.
These five equations are then each rearranged into an equation for skin
thickness in terms of core thickness (see the example below). In excel a column
is made with values of core thickness ranging from 0mm to 30mm increasing in
increments of 0.1mm. The adjacent column is used to find the skin thickness
that satisfies the failure mode equation, when the core thickness equals that in
the left hand column. These values of core and skin thickness are then plotted
on the failure map. This process is repeated for the other 4 equations to create
the failure map.
Example: Fiberglass skins with a PVC foam Core, Max skin stress
Equation 1 can be rearranged to give
s2 + cs A = 0
Where A is a constant equal to

Therefore,

s=

3 WL 3 10000 4
=
=4.285714 105
8 b max 8 1 3.5 10 8

c c 24 1 4.285714 105
2 1

Figure 2: Excel
spreadsheet
for
determining
the
relationship
between core
and skin

David Ashby

To determine the optimal design the mass per square meter has to be minimized.
To find this the equation following equation is used.

Equation 6:

M cc 2 s s

Where M is the mass per m , c is the core thickness, s is the skin thickness,
the core density and

is

is the skin density.

This equation is rearranged similarly to the previous ones to give skin thickness
as a function of core thickness. The same technique as before is used to find the
corresponding skin and core thicknesses which are then plotted on the failure
map. The value for the mass is then altered until this line for constant mass just
touches the point at which all failure modes are satisfied. Then this point is
determined and this gives the optimal dimensions for the skin and core. This
process is then repeated or the other 5 combinations of skin and core materials.

David Ashby

Results
Fibreglass/PVC Foam
0.03

Max Skin Stress

0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 91.4kg/m
0.01

-0.05

Optimal Mass

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

Fibreglass/Honeycomb
0.03

Max Skin Stress

0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 49.4kg/m
0.01

-0.05

0.05

Optimal Mass

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

David Ashby

Carbon Fibre/PVC Foam

0.03

Max Skin Stress

0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 42.0kg/m
0.01

-0.05

Optimal Mass

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

Carbon Fibre/Honeycomb
0.03

Max Skin Stress

0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 31.2kg/m
0.01

-0.05

0.05

Optimal Mass

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

David Ashby

Aluminium/PVC Foam
0.03
0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Skin Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 57.6kg/m
0.01

-0.05

Optimal Mass

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

Aluminium/Honeycomb
0.03
0.02
Max Core Shear Stress

Max Skin Stress

Max Core Thickness

Penetration

0.02

Skin Thickness (m)

0.01
Deflection

Mass
= 38.4kg/m
0.01

-0.05

Optimal Mass

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Core Thickness(m)

Panel

Core Thickness
(mm)

Skin Thickness
(mm)

Mass
(kg/m)

Fibreglass/PVC Foam
Fibreglass/Al
Honeycomb
Carbon Fibre/PVC Foam
Carbon Fibre/Al

100
205

4.68
1.15

91.4
49.4

100
130

1.50
0.87

42.0
31.2
7

David Ashby
Honeycomb
Aluminium/PVC Foam
Aluminium/Al
Honeycomb

100
160

1.50
0.57

57.6
38.4

David Ashby

Discussion
It can be seen from the graphs that all sandwich panels with an Aluminium
Honeycomb core, which meet the specification, are lighter than when the same
skin is used with a PVC foam core. This is due to the honeycombs lower density
and higher youngs modulus. Also, as the PVC foam is only available in sizes up
to 100mm thickness this become one of the two main limiting factors, along with
the deflection, in designs that use it. This means that the skin has to be much
thicker, when using PVC foam, and as all the skin materials are at least 25 times
the density of the foam this has a big impact on the weight. In all designs the
deflection is the main limiting factor.
The panels with fibreglass skins are the heaviest, this is despite the skin having
the second lowest density of 1,800 kg.m -3 as opposed to 2,800 kg.m-3 for
aluminium and 1,500 kg.m-3 for carbon fibre. However, its youngs modulus, of
21GPa, is significantly lower than that of carbon fibre or aluminium, both are
70GPa. This means the skin has to be much thicker, and, where possible, its core
thicker than for the other two materials making it the heaviest.
The panel with the lowest mass, 31.2kg/m for a 4 m span, is constructed of
0.87mm carbon fibre skins with 130mm aluminium honeycomb core. Its not
surprising that this is the lightest design as carbon fibre has the lowest density of
the skin materials with the highest youngs modulus, compressive strength and
tensile strength. Also, the core made of aluminium honeycomb has the lowest
density of the core materials and the highest youngs modulus, shear modulus,
compressive and shear strength.

Conclusion
The optimal design for a honeycomb panel is one constructed of 0.87mm carbon
fibre skins with a 130mm aluminium honeycomb core and a total mass of
31.2kg/m for a 4m span. The main limitation in all designs is the deflection and
in designs that use PVC the maximum thickness of the core is the other limiting
factor. However, a carbon fibre panel would be more expensive to produce than
one with aluminium or fibreglass skins. Aluminium skins with an aluminium
honeycomb core is only 7.2kg/m heavier and would be considerably cheaper.
However, as this is for an aerospace application the lowest weight is probably
more crucial so the carbon fibre skins and aluminium core is the best solution.