Calculation of the effective shear modulus of composite sandwich panels

Abstract

Calculation Method for the effective shear modulus of composite plates with sandwich cores is presented. This elastic coefficient represents one very important material property especially in constructions subjected to pure torsion and combined bending - torsion. The structures investigated in this research are flat plates made of top and bottom composite facesheets and hexagonal composite material sandwich core. Starting from classical Lamination theory the effective shear modulus of top and bottom plates was determined for each ply in the stack up sequence. These plies were 'lumped into a single composite layer for different fiber orientations and plies thicknesses. To verify this approach Finite element method was used to determine the displacement, stress and strain field on Composite plates with Sandwich Cores. Two types of models were compared: The initial model where all the material components, plates and the core were modeled with their intrinsic properties and "lumped" model with calculated effective elastic coefficients.