Elastic Constants for Z‐Core Sandwich Panels

Abstract

The computational effort to analyze a sandwich panel can be greatly reduced if an equivalent 2D thick‐plate bending model is used instead of a detailed 3D finite‐element model. The success of the transformation from a sandwich panel to a 2D thick‐plate bending model depends on the equivalent elastic constants used. In this note, these elastic constants for Z‐core sandwich panels are summarized. The elastic constant for the shear stiffness in the weaker direction for Z‐core sandwich panels is derived. To ascertain the validity of the elastic constants, the results obtained from the 2D thick‐plate bending model with different boundary conditions are compared with a detailed 3D finite‐element model. From the results, it is shown that excellent agreement is obtained between the two models.