Energy Dissipation in Sandwich Structures During Axial Compression

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the energy dissipation in sandwich structures during axial crushing. Axial crushing tests on six sandwich elements are described. The sandwich elements consist of a polyurethane core and E-glass/Polyester skin. The elements compare to full-scale structural elements in fast sandwich vessels.

Two of the crushing tests are simulated with the explicit finite element software LS-DYNA3D. The key results are load-end shortening relationship and the energy dissipation. Good agreement between the numerical predictions and the experiments are obtained. A simple analytical model for the energy dissipation during axial crushing is proposed.

Keywords: Sandwich, Energy Dissipation, Axial Crushing, LS-DYNA, Analytical crushing models, Crashworthiness.