Corrugated core sandwich steel panel

Abstract

Orthotropic bridges are being built for more than half a century. These bridges are prone to high cycle fatigue due to traffic loading. Early onset of fatigue cracking is a serious issue in both old and recently built bridges. To prevent this a number of different cross section have been suggested. Sandwich Panel is one of the suggested alternative that has become more feasible to produce due to advancement in Hybrid Laser Arc Welding (HLAW) technology. One type of sandwich panel with corrugated core was investigated in this thesis. Ease of manufacturing, stronger welds, reduced complexity of welding and improved transverse shear stiffness are some advantages of sandwich panel over conventional orthotropic decks. The aim of this thesis is to apply J-Integral based local approach for fatigue assessment of sandwich panels subjected to lateral loads. J-Integral represents a way to calculate the strain energy release rate and is a measure of crack tip elastic-plastic field. It has already been used successfully to quantify fatigue performance of web core sandwich panels and is therefore used in this thesis. A second aim of this thesis is to justify the use of foam filling in sandwich panels by comparing fatigue performance of empty and foam filled sandwich panels. For validation, bending behaviour of panel was first investigated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The model developed for dual stake laser welded panel accurately estimated response parameters (compared to experimental results of Tan et al. [33]) like maximum deflection (2.2% difference), critical stresses in transverse direction (9% difference) for top and bottom face plates etc. For verification of Contour Integral technique of Abaqus/CAE, J-Integral at notch tip of ASTM CT specimen was calculated. Compared with empirical solution the FE estimate showed 16% difference with FE estimate being more conservative. Seven different types of foam were considered as filling in sandwich panels. The foams were of polymeric type - H45, H60, H80, H100, H130, H180, H200, and H250 (Unit weight of foams - 48 to 250 kg/mኽ and Young’s Modulus - 45 to 250 MPa). Based on two stage 3D FEA on empty and foam filled sandwich panels, it was observed that J-Integral value at critical tensile notch decreased consistently as stronger foam fillings were used in the panel (83.8% reduction observed between empty panel and H250 foam filled panel). Cycles to failure for panels were calculated using regression equation derived from existing research on web-core sandwich panel. Between empty and H100 foam filled panel an increase of 171 times was observed in cycles to failure. This increase justifies the use of foam filling.