E 3.

4A
Aerospace Composite Beams and
Their Flexure Behaviour Report

A case study of sandwich beams

Done by: Wang Yi Dan

Lab Group: DE13
Matric No: U1520726B
 Table of Contents

Introduction3

Literature Survey
Application of composites in aerospace industry.3

Simple bending theory.5

Three-point bending test..6

Project Methodology and procedures6

Results and Discussion...7

Conclusion...14

Bibliography.15
Introduction

Sandwich structures are commonly employed in the aerospace industry as part of the efforts to
maximise the use of composites. Their high specific strength and stiffness yield weight
reductions and thus fuel savings. In application, sandwich structures are mainly used as
bending components.

The theory of sandwich structures arises from the difference in mechanical properties of
facesheets and the core. Particularly, the facesheet handles most of the bending stress while
the core carries majority of the shear stress. The sandwich structure in use is that of a CFRP-
foam structure. This report aims to investigate the bending behaviour and failure modes of such
structures undergoing bending test.

In this experiment, four specimens will be tested. The first being just the Unifoam itself and the
rest being Unifoam cores sandwiched by two CFRP facesheets with varying thickness. All the
specimens are subjected to a three-point bending tests and their respective stress profile have
been recorded. In order to calculate the bending and shearing stress throughout the beam, the
transformed section method will be applied to transform the composite cross-section to an
uniform section for conventional stress analysis to be done. Besides observing the structure
behaviour of individual beams, there will also be efforts to study the extent of usefulness for
localised reinforcement under bending.

Literature Survey

Application of CFRP in aerospace industry

Composite materials are made from its matrix and reinforcement. The rationale for composite is
to reap the mechanical benefits of both matrix and reinforcements simultaneously. Take
fiberglass for instance, the long fiber reinforcements have high strength, high stiffness and low
density while the polyester matrix composites has good shear properties. Taken together, the
fiberglass composite is can withstand high bending and shearing loads than its constituent
members alone.

There are three main classifications for matrix which are metal, ceramic and polymer. Metals
commonly seen are alloys, particularly aluminum alloys for its low density and high strength.
More elaboration can be made for polymer matrix which can further classified into thermoset
and thermoplastics. One of the most common thermoset polymer is epoxy, others include
polyester and phenolic resins. For thermoplastics, there are materials such as polystyrene and
nylon. Reinforcements come in three forms, namely are fibers, laminar and filled. Both short and
long fibers (also called whiskers) can be made from carbon, glass and ceramics. For laminar,
there are materials like craft paper, canvas and glass phenolic.
There are three main types of composites commonly seen today which come in the form of:

Fiber-reinforced (continuous (aligned) and short fibers (aligned or random)

Particle-reinforced (large-particle and dispersion-strengthened)
Structural (laminates and sandwich panels).

One important feature of these composites is their material composition and geometry. The
reinforcements can come in various dimensions. The fibers and particles can differ in their
dimension and orientation. This is to ensure that each composite serve its purpose by carrying
the intended load at a given weight and size. More can be said for structural composites.
Laminates are a result of plies being stacked at different angles (i.e. 30,-30, 45,-45 degrees) to
give rise to isotropic material properties.

For the experiment, sandwich beams used are made from CFRP and Unifoam. The application
of beams can be found in the upper deck floor of commercial airliner Airbus A380.

Fig 1: Applications of composites in an aircraft

The lower fuselage is responsible to carry the payload and thus requires beam members to
provide static strength, prevent failure by buckling or bending. Hence, it is worthwhile to study
the performance of the simple sandwich beam structures since its application can extend into
aircraft component.
Simple Bending Theory

An internal bending resulted from external load M causes the beam to deform. As shown in the
diagram below, the top half of the beam will experiences compression, the bottom half
experiences tension. And the profile is linear with change in y. The neutral surface does not
change in length. The magnitude of the bending stress is maximum at the two surfaces and
decrease linearly to zero at the neutral axis. The governing equation of the bending stress of an
uniform cross-section is = /() where is bending stress in N/m*2, M is the moment
about the neutral axis in Nm, y is the perpendicular distance to the neutral axis in m and I(x) is
the second moment of area about the neutral axis in m*4.

Fig 2: Bending in beams

Here is where the application of the CFRP comes into play. The relatively higher Young
Modulus of the CFRP enabled the facesheets to carry the maximum bending stress on both
sides from the moment applied. In comparison, the foam contributes very little to the load
carrying capacity of the beam because its modulus of elasticity is much lower than the CFRP.
More importantly, the presence of CFRP facesheets protect the Unifoam core from failing
through core fracture on the surface where the loading is applied. This prevent brittle failure and
ensures that replacement of beam members is possible before catastrophic damage occurs.

Fig 3: Shearing profile of rectangular profile

Unlike in bending stress, the core is largely responsible for withstanding shear stress. The
distribution of the shear stress throughout the cross section due to a shear force V can be
determined by computing the shear stress at an arbitrary height y from the Neutral Axis given by
the formula = /where is the shear stress in N/m,V is shear force applied in N, Q is first
moment of area in m*3, I is second moment of area in m*4 and w is width of cross section
perpendicular to shear in m.Through calculation, it can be shown that the shear stress
distribution is parabolic as seen from figure above. Shear stress is zero at the top and bottom
where y=h/2 and reaches maximum at the neutral axis at y=0. The actual shear diagram will
differ for the sandwich structure for the cross-section differs in width and thus a discontinuity
present. This will be demonstrated in the discussion section.

Three-Point bending test

In this experiment, the test used was ASTM D 790 three-point flexure test. Under such loading,
the sandwich beams(or the Unifoam itself) will experience maximum bending moment, M=
PL/4( 5N/m), and maximum shear force(50N) that equals to the reactions at both supports
resulting into shear distribution as shown in the calculation in the workings. Under simple beam
theory where the beam is homogenous, the conventional equations of bending moment and
shear stress can be applied. However, the CFRP differs from the Unifoam core in terms of its
Young Modulus for reasons discussed above. Consequently, the method of Transformed
Section Method is introduced to convert the rectangular cross-section into a I-beam with uniform
Youngs Modulus of the Unifoam. After which the calculation can proceed by applying simple
beam theory, followed by application of Hookes Law to determine the strain profile. From here,
the actual bending moment and shear stress can be determined for each discrete point, a
particular point of interest will be the discontinuous point where the CFRP meets the Unifoam.

Project Methodology and procedures

The samples are manufactured by the following method

1. De-freeze the CFRP prepreg for not less than 12 hours

2. Cut prepreg into 300mm*40mm dimensions
3. Roll 2 layers of prepreg on top of each other to make 1 facesheet, making sure no air bubbles
remain
4. Place facesheets on both side of foam core and perform rolling once again
5. Place the sandwiched specimen in between 2 C-clamps and apply even pressure on both
ends
6. Cure the specimen in the oven for 10 hours
7. Inspect the finished specimen for defect before using it for experiment

The three point bending test makes use of a span of 200mm with a point load in the centre. The
test is performed by Instron 5569 universal testing machine. Data to be collected are the
variation of displacements with loading under constant rate. This is plotted into graph form.
From which, the modulus of elasticities of each specimen can be calculated from the gradient of
the graph.
Results and Discussions

From the data gathered, the average modulus of elasticities is 29.62Mpa and 45.54Mpa for
Unifoam and CFRP respectively.

The maximum bending stress for specimen 2 is the highest among all the samples at 781.8Kpa
after transformed into Unifoam. The bending stress are smaller for specimen 2 and 3 with
229.0Kpa and 222.2Kpa respectively. From the simple bending stress equation, the magnitude
of the bending stress is inversely proportionate to the second moment of area and directly
proportional the thickness. The second moment of area increase from 2 to 4, this effect
outweighs the countering effect of increasing thickness as I(x) increase by one order of
magnitude. Hence, the bending stress decreases from specimen 2 to 4.

Looking at the result after transformation back to the actual profile, it can be observed that the
CFRP facesheets are very prominent in carrying the bending stress at the top and bottom of the
structure. Take specimen 2 for instance, the actual bending stress experienced by the facesheet
is 1.202Mpa,a 53.7% increase in bending stress as compared to Unifoam alone. This
percentage is almost identical for the other specimens. The addition of the CFRP is definitely
essential in preventing sudden core fracture due to transverse loading as the Unifoam is
shielded from high bending stress at the top. Therefore, it is observed that for the Unifoam
alone, at its bending stress threshold, the foam failed brittlely and a relatively straight cleave is
evidence for the core fracture. In contrast, despite increasing the strain rate for the rest of the
specimens, the sandwiched structures underwent continuous bending with no observable
cracks in the core and the facesheets remain intact. The only significant result is wrinkling of the
top facesheet around the point of loading where strain rate is increased to 50mm/s. This is
caused by local buckling for the facesheets and a result of high strain rate.

As for shear stress, for all the specimens, it is apparent that the Unifoam core is responsible in
carrying most of the shear load. In an uniform homogenous cross section, shear stress
increases parabolically from 0 to maximum at the centroid. The facesheets only need to carry a
small portion of the shear stress as the majority of the stress will be handled by the core. In
terms of values calculated at the designated point, the shear stress again decreases from
specimen 2 to 4 from 45.82kPa to 23.88kPa. The reason is similar to that for bending stress
trend, the only difference lies in that the second moment of area increases much faster than the
first moment of area, so for the same shear force and width, the shear stress decreases. It is
worth mentioning that the reinforcement added for specimen 4 did reduce the both maximum
bending stress and shear stress, but its effect was not significant. A possible improvement could
be to reinforce the entire longitudinal stretch by adding a complete additional facesheet instead
of only at the point of loading. The resultant shear profile seen from Fig 4 is as predicted in the
calculation, the facesheets carried less than 10kPa of shear stress while the core is seen to
withstand up to 50kPa. The point at the interface experience a large increase in shear stress as
the shear stress distributes from CFRP to the core.
Fig 4. Shear stress profile for samples 2, 3 and 4
Detailed Calculations:
Conclusion

This experiment involved the handling of prepreg and curing of CFRP with foam core. Through
the universal testing machine, the three point bending test was carried out. There was no
obvious defects or serious delamination for the specimens made which ensured the validity of
the results collected to a large extent.

Fig 5: Graph of manufacturing cost and material costs

Currently, there is continuous effort to integrate more composite materials into the aerospace
industry. Airbus is at the forerunner of integrating composites into their aircraft, namely an
industry first CFRP composite wingbox for the A380 aircraft. The existing challenge for greater
composite utilisation is the balancing of manufacturing process cost with material costs. As
shown by Fig 5, competition for metals have driven up the material costs causing rightward
movement of the green point. However, the advancement in assembly technologies such as
those quoted from Airbus report (i.e. Automated Fiber Placement, Automated Tape Laying,
Resin Film Infusion and Resin Transfer Moulding) brought down the process costs to the red
point. The goal for composites of tomorrow is to move leftward to the pink point where better
capabilities for low cost production with less material wastage can become a reality.

Overall, projection for composites application is heading towards greater sustainability and
higher performance capabilities at a controlled cost. This requires many efforts into research
and development. The application from aerospace for composites can also extend to other
industries, benefiting the larger population.
Bibliography

D.S.Cairns.(2009). Composite material for aircraft structures [Online].Available:

http://www.montana.edu/dcairns/documents/composites/MSUComposites2009.pdf
F.C. Campbell.(2010).Introduction to composite materials [Online].Available:
http://www.asminternational.org/documents/10192/1849770/05287G_Sample_Chapter.pdf
J.Pora.().Composite Materials in the Airbus A380 - From History to Future -[Online].Available:
http://www.iccm-central.org/Proceedings/ICCM13proceedings/SITE/PAPERS/paper-1695.pdf
Transverse Shear Stresses in Beams[Online].Available:
http://portal.ku.edu.tr/~cbasdogan/Courses/MDesign/course_notes/ShearStressInBeamsNotes.
pdf