Delamination analysis of composite sandwich plate of cork agglomerate/glass fiber-polyester: An experimental investigation

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of damage in sandwich structures. These sandwich panels are result of the combination of glass-polyester as skins and cork agglomerate as core. For this purpose, delamination test (mode I) is carried on double cantilever beams (DCB) in sandwich beams. The initiation crack is characterized by toughness obtained from the determination of energy release rate (GIC) by modified beam theory method. The skins of these sandwiches are considered as orthotropic materials while the core as isotropic transverse material. The results show that, the energy release rate at the initiation of the crack of (DCB) specimens remains almost constant despite the variation of the initial crack, a good adhesion (skins - core) is also noticed.