Comprehensive strength analysis of framed sandwich panels
Local instability of thin facings in sandwich panels often leads to wrinkling at stresses lower than yield stresses. An investigation was carried out by the authors on the behaviour of the facings of rectangular sandwich panels having thin aluminum faces and styrofoam core when subjected to edgewise compression and (or) out-of-plane bending. A set of the panels had no additional reinforcement at the edges whereas others were either totally or partially reinforced with wood framing integrated along the edges. Existing formulae developed to predict these stresses were found to overestimate results obtained from a test programme conducted by the authors. New expressions are presented for wrinkling and ultimate loads for sandwich panels with various edge conditions. A comparison is made between existing and newly derived expressions.