Thermomechanical interaction effects in composite sandwich structures ? initial experimental analysis and derivation of mechanical properties

The aim of the proposed work is to develop experimental approaches that provide a deeper understanding of the thermomechanical behaviour of foam cored sandwich structures. The main thrust is to experimentally validate the occurrence of strongly nonlinear interactions between mechanical and thermal loads in the response of foam cored sandwich structures, as predicted in [1 - 4]. It is proposed to design full-field non-contact experimental procedures that allow the characterisation of the behaviour of foam and form cored sandwich structures without introducing any deleterious effects from the measuring or loading system.

The key objectives are:

?to develop digital image correlation (DIC)/non-contact extensometry/infra-red thermography procedures for obtaining the stress-strain behaviour from polymer foam core materials at elevated temperatures in a variety of loading configurations.

?to design a unique rig that allows sandwich beams to be subjected to thermal and mechanical load with a variety of controllable constraints.

?to develop measurement approaches to provide full-field deformation and thermal data from the sandwich beams.

?to provide a thermomechanical characterisation of the material/structural performance using experimental data to validate existing measured data and models.

?to assess the performance and damage tolerance of materials after exposure to elevated temperatures and thermal degradation