Application of column buckling theory to steel aluminium foam sandwich panels

Application of column buckling theory to steel aluminium foam sandwich panels

Vidwans, Aditya (Sapienza University of Rome; Student TU Delft)
Trovalusci, Patrizia (Sapienza University of Rome)
Fantuzzi, Nicholas (University of Bologna)
Correia, J.A.F.O. (TU Delft Engineering Structures; Universidade do Porto)

Engineering Structures

2023

In steel structures, a lot of attention is paid to lightweight structures, i.e. reduction of dead load without compromising structural safety, integrity and performance. Thanks to modern steel aluminium foam sandwich panel manufacturing technology a new possibility became available for lightweight structural design. Assessment and understanding of the behaviour of this sandwich panel under in-plane compression or flexure is crucial before its application in steel structures. Column buckling theory is considered and applied to the steel aluminium foam sandwich panel to evaluate its behaviour under in-plane compressive load. In this work, various assumptions are made to generalise Euler's buckling formula. The generalisation requires modification of the buckling stiffness expression to account for sandwich panel composite properties. The modified analytical expression is verified with finite element simulation employing various material models specific to steel face-plates and aluminium foam as well as various geometric imperfections. Based on this study, it can be concluded that Euler's buckling formula can be successfully modified and used in the prediction of the load-carrying capacity of a sandwich panel.

Aluminium foam
Buckling
Sandwich

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bc22b7f3-e6be-468c-b89b-92355b8fd356

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2023.04.112

2352-0124

Structures, 54, 607-617

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 Aditya Vidwans, Patrizia Trovalusci, Nicholas Fantuzzi, J.A.F.O. Correia