Bending Behavior of Sandwich Panels with a “Soft” Core and Embedded Rigid Inserts

Abstract

The bending behavior of sandwich panels with a “soft” core hosting embedded rigid inserts is analytically investigated. Three approaches for the mathematical modeling of the sandwich panel hosting the rigid insert are discussed. In addition, the continuity conditions between the regions hosting the rigid insert and the adjacent sandwich regions are derived. Numerical results that demonstrate the capabilities of the model and highlight some of the effects that characterize the response of the panel are also presented.