Failure Behavior of a Sandwich Beam with GLARE Face-Sheets and Aluminum Foam Core under Three-Point Bending

In this paper, the failure behavior of sandwich beams with aluminum foam core and glass fiber-reinforced epoxy/aluminum laminates (GLARE) face-sheets under three-point bending is studied by experimental and numerical methods. Through the observation of the experiments, the initial failure modes of GLARE sandwich beams are observed, i.e., indentation and core shear. The deformation and failure process of GLARE sandwich beams are explored. Finite element simulations are performed by using ABAQUS software, and the numerical results agree well with experimental results for peak loads of GLARE sandwich beams. The effects of geometrical and material parameters on the peak loads of GLARE sandwich beams are discussed in details. It is shown that the peak loads and energy absorption of GLARE sandwich beams increase with the increase of face-sheet thickness and foam strength and the decrease of span length. The effects of elastic modulus of foam and fiber laying angle of face-sheet are very small.