Numerical investigation on the effect of different face sheet materials and core designs on the ballistic response of sandwich structures under low-velocity impact

Abstract

In the present article, a detailed numerical deformation and failure analysis of sandwiched structures with different face sheet materials and core design has been carried out. Different face sheets materials ranging from aluminium alloys to composites such as carbon/epoxy and kevlar/epoxy fixed on different types of core were analyzed. Sandwiched structure with aluminium alloy face sheet showed minimum deformation of the impacting point, large impactor recoil and least strain energy absorption. Whereas carbon/epoxy face sheet showed large deformation of the impacting point for all the core designs. Employing the carbon/epoxy face sheet, the impactor recoiled only with square and hexagonal core design while the strain energy absorption was minimum for square and maximum for circular core designs. Kevlar/epoxy face sheet also showed large deformation of the impacting point for all the types of honeycomb core designs. The impactor recoiled very minimally for square core design and there was no recoil for the hexagonal and circular core. Kevlar/epoxy face sheet showed maximum displacement of the impacting point and strain energy absorption for the circular core. Thus, it can be said that sandwiched structure with a carbon/epoxy face sheet appeared to be the best choice in terms of energy absorption during the impact. The present study showed improvement in ballistic behaviour of sandwich structure with composite face sheet as compared to metallic face sheet in terms of energy absorption.