Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Energy absorption and low velocity impact response of polyurethane

foam filled pyramidal lattice core sandwich panels
Guoqi Zhang, Bing Wang, Li Ma, Linzhi Wu ⇑, Shidong Pan, Jinshui Yang
Center for Composite Materials, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, the polyurethane foam filled pyramidal lattice core sandwich panel is fabricated in order to
Available online 25 September 2013 improve the energy absorption and low velocity impact resistance. Based on the compression tests, a syn-
ergistic effect that the foam filled sandwich panels have a greater load carrying capacity compared to the
Keywords: sum of the unfilled specimens and the filled polyurethane block is found. Moreover, the energy absorp-
Polyurethane foam tion efficiency of foam filled sandwich panels with higher relative density (2.58% and 3.17%) lattice cores
Pyramidal lattice core is lower than that of the unfilled specimens when the compressive strain is small, while it exhibits supe-
Energy absorption efficiency
rior when the compressive strain arrives at about 0.25, and the superiority enlarges as the strain increase.
Impact resistance
However, the energy absorption of foam filled sandwich panels owning lower relative density (1.83%) lat-
tice cores is inferior to that of the unfilled specimens. During the low velocity impact tests, it is found that
the contact duration between the impactor and the sandwich specimens is shorter and the impact peak
load has a slight increase for the foam filled specimens.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction response of circular cell honeycombs filled with polyurethane

Sandwich panels consisting of two strong, stiff and thin face-
sheets separated by a soft lightweight core are commonly used
in aerospace and automobile structures because of their specific
strength, stiffness and great energy absorption potential [1–3].
More recently, interest in the sandwich panels has concentrated
on the lattice core sandwich panels [4–7]. Under all applied load-
ings, the truss members of lattice core sandwich panels deform
by stretching. In contrast, the stochastic foam deforms mainly by
the bending of cell walls [8,9]. Consequently, the lattice core sand-
wich panels possess much higher specific strength and stiffness.
However, when the truss members are sufficiently slender, such
as the core relative density q
 < 20%, the lattice core sandwich pan-
els collapse in compression predominantly by the elastic or inelas-
tic buckling of truss members [10,11]. As a result, the property of
the core material is not fully explored. Thus, in view of the energy
absorbing capability aspect, lattice cores are not desirable for sand-
wich panels. In contrast, foam cores are commonly used as the en-
ergy absorbers due to their superior energy absorption ability,
especially the metal foams [12–14]. Recently, the metallic and
polymeric foams have been investigated extensively as fillers for
the hollow cores. The results have shown that these low density
foams have positive effect on the energy absorption capability of
panels. Royan and Anthony have studied the axial static crush
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 451 86412549; fax: +86 451 86402386.
E-mail address: wlz@hit.edu.cn (L. Wu).
foam [15]. The experimental results demonstrated the initial fail-
ure was a stable collapse unlike the abrupt first failure in unfilled
honeycombs. Consequently, the crush energy absorption reported
also has amplified [16]. Tarlochan et al. investigated the response
of composite sandwich panels with tubular inserts under quasi-
static compression [17]. In this study, the composite panel speci-
mens were fabricated from glass fiber, polystyrene foam and epoxy
resin. The work also demonstrated the composite sandwich struc-
ture had high energy absorption capability and high crushes force
efficiency. Yoo and Chang tested the energy absorption of foam
filled composite egg-box panels [18]. It was found that the com-
posite egg-box panels filled with polyurethane foam had good en-
ergy absorption capacity and the stress–strain curves resembled
those of the ideal energy absorbers.
Inspired by the above research, the current paper aims to eval-
uate the possible use of polyurethane foam as filler to enhance the
energy absorption capacity and impact resistance of composite
sandwich panels with pyramidal lattice cores. In the present re-
search, the truss members of the lattice core play the role like
the z-pin or x-pin reinforcement of foam cores. It is supposed that
the foam and the truss members can support each other to with-
stand the compressive and impact loading. Furthermore, the foam
gives lateral support to the truss members, and the truss members
prevent crushing of the foam core by providing confinement. Here,
the fabrication of composite pyramidal lattice core sandwich panel
specimens filled with polyurethane foam was introduced in Sec-
tion 2.1. The results of compression tests and low velocity impact

0263-8223/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2013.09.040
 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310 305

experiments were provided in Section 4. Moreover, the energy Table 1

absorption capacity and impact resistance of these filled sandwich Material properties of the unidirectional carbon/epoxy (T700/3234) laminate.

panels were compared with the unfilled specimens. Symbol Value Property
E11 123 GPa Longitudinal stiffness
2. Specimen fabrication E22 8.4 GPa Transverse stiffness
E33 8.4 GPa Out-of-plane stiffness
t12, t13 0.32 Poisson’s ratio
2.1. Fabrication of sandwich panels with pyramidal lattice cores
t23 0.3 Poisson’s ratio
G12, G13 4 GPa Shear modulus
The pyramidal lattice core is fabricated from aluminum alloy G23 3 GPa Shear modulus
sheets (2A12-T4, Harbin Dongqing Metals Manufacturing Co., Chi- Xt 2100 MPa Longitudinal tensile strength
Xc 800 MPa Longitudinal compressive strength
na) based on the slot-fitting method [19]. The process is schemat-
Yt 25 MPa Transverse tensile strength
ically illustrated in Fig. 1. First, the stacked aluminum alloy sheets Yc 120 MPa Transverse compressive strength
are cut using wire electro discharge machining, and then the Zt 50 MPa Out-of-plane tensile strength
stripes are assembled into the pyramidal core topology. Finally, S12, S23, S13 40 MPa Shear strength
the facesheets made from unidirectional carbon/epoxy (T700/ q 1560 kg/m3 Density

3234, Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, China) pregs, with

the stacking sequence [00/900/00/900]s, are bonded to the top and
bottom faces of lattice cores using film adhesive (J-272, Heilongji- Table 2
ang Institute of Petrochemical, China). The detailed properties of Properties of aluminum alloy sheets (2A12-T4).

the unidirectional carbon/epoxy laminate and aluminum alloy
sheets (2A12-T4) are detailed in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. Three
types of cores (A, B and C) are investigated in this paper, and the
corresponding geometrical parameters (in Fig. 2) are listed in Ta-
ble 3. The facesheets of all specimens in the present study are in
a size of 95 mm  95 mm  1 mm and the lattice cores are com-
prised of 3  3 cells, as shown in Fig. 3a. For the sake of clarity,
the sandwich specimens with the pyramidal lattice core A, B and
C are marked as specimen A, B and C, respectively.
2.2. Fabrication of polyurethane foam filled pyramidal lattice core
sandwich panels
In the present study, the foam material consists of two-part
polyurethane foam precursors in the form of liquid supplied by
Density Young’s modulus Poisson’s ratio Yield strength
2700 kg/m 3
70 GPa 0.3 464 MPa
Wanhua company (Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes Co., China).
Part-A is a diphenylmethane diisocyanate polymer and Part-B is
a polyol (mixed with blowing and curing agent). When Part-A
and Part-B are mixed at a suitable stoichiometry, heat is generated
as a result of the polymerization reaction between the dissocya-
nate and polyol; the resulting heat gives rise to the volatile liquid
blowing agents to evaporate and form gas bubbles, which expands
the mixture to produce foam. The process of filling the polyure-
thane foam to the pyramidal lattice core sandwich panels is carried
out in two steps. In the first step, Part-A is mixed with Part-B using
a high speed stirrer at about 2500 rpm/min. The mixing ratio of
Part-A and Part-B is 50:50 by weight. After mixing, the mixture
is immediately added into the sealed sandwich panels and left to
cure in the oven at 28 °C for 48 h. Finally, the subsidiary foam
around the pouring orifice is trimmed, and the fabricated filled
sandwich specimen is shown in Fig. 3b. The same manufacturing
procedure is followed for making neat polyurethane foam using a
steel rectangular mold, which is used to investigate the mechanical
of the present polyurethane foam. The fabricated foam in the pres-
ent study has a density of 31 kg/m3.

3. Mechanical tests

3.1. Compression of polyurethane foam block and the foam filled

sandwich panel specimens

Five foam specimens are prepared and tested according to

ASTM C365/C365M-05 to determine the compressive properties
using the screw-driven test machine Instron 5569 with the dis-
placement rate of 0.5 mm/min [20]. The specimens are cube with
a dimension 95 mm  95 mm  15 mm. The response of pyramidal
lattice core sandwich panel under the quasi-static compression has
been investigated in [19], and only the foam filled sandwich panels
are conducted in the present study. Three specimens of each type
core are tested with the displacement control of 0.5 mm/min
[20], and the test fixture is plotted in Fig. 4.

3.2. Low velocity impact test

Fig. 1. Schematic of the manufacturing process for the pyramidal lattice core. (a) A
As we know, the sandwich panels are susceptible to impact
picture of the stripe pattern for assembling the core; (b) the sketch to build the damage caused by runway debris, hailstones, dropped tools, etc.
pyramidal lattice core and (c) the assembled pyramidal lattice core. Therefore, the low velocity response of polyurethane foam filled
306 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310

Fig. 2. The unit cell geometry of the pyramidal lattice core [19].

Table 3
The pyramidal lattice core parameters.

Core ID x (°) h (mm) t (mm) b (mm) c (mm) ha (mm) hb (mm) l (mm) q

 (%)

A 45 15 1.4 1.2 8 1.2 1.2 16.12 1.83

B 45 15 1.4 1.5 8 1.5 1.5 14.85 2.58
C 45 15 1.4 2.0 8 2.0 2.0 14.85 3.17

(a) Impactor
Polyurethane foam

Facesheets

Pyramidal lattice core

Fig. 3. The sandwich specimens. (a) The sandwich panel with pyramidal lattice (b)
truss core and (b) the foam filled sandwich panel.

Fig. 5. The impact sites. (a) The impact site SN and (b) the impact site SM.

Fig. 4. Flatwise compression test fixture.

specimen is also investigated in this paper. Due to the limited

numbers of specimens, only the specimen B filled with polyure-
thane foam is tested in the present study. Low velocity impact tests
are conducted using an instrumented impact drop tower device
Dynatup Model 9250HV. During tests, the impactor possesses a
hemispherical nose of 12.1 mm in diameter and a force transducer
is mounted in the hemispherical impactor nose with the capacity
of 22KN. The 95  95 mm specimens are placed in the fixture
and clamped from all sides using pneumatic actuation. The impact
response of the specimens including velocity, displacement, load
and absorbed energy are recorded and stored by computer using
data acquisition software. During tests, a range of impact energies
Fig. 6. The compressive stress–strain curves for the polyurethane foam.
that vary from 5 J to 25 J are achieved by changing the drop height.
The impactor mass is assigned 6.15 kg for all tests in the present
study. In comparisons with the response of unfilled specimens
[19], the same impact sites are chosen in the current tests. One
case is the impact site located on the node (Impact site SN) and
the other impact site is the middle point of the four adjacent nodes
(Impact site SM), as shown in Fig. 5.
 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310
Fig. 7. The response of foam filled specimens against that of unfilled specimens and
the polyurethane block. (a) Specimen A; (b) specimen B and (c) specimen C.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. The compression tests
The stress–strain curves of the present polyurethane foam are
depicted in Fig. 6. Different stress states are marked as O, A, B
and C in this figure. The region OA represents the linear response
of the foam, and the deformation is elastic, which is due to cell wall
bending. The region AB corresponds to a near-plateau stress region
in which the cell within the foam loses stability and starts to
compact drastically with little respond to the applied load, hence
307
Fig. 8. The response of foam filled specimen B under the quasi-static compression
test. (a) Displacement Dh = 0 mm; (b) displacement Dh = 5 mm and (c) displace-
ment Dh = 10 mm.
yielding a near-plateau region. This is followed by the densification
region in which the cells are completely ‘‘flatten’’ and the force
rises quickly with little deformation as designated by region BC.
Here, we describe the response of the foam filled specimens un-
der compression. The representative force–displacement of the
specimen A, B and C filled with polyurethane foam are plotted in
Fig. 7a–c, respectively. The plots of the corresponding unfilled
pyramidal lattice core sandwich specimens and that of the poly-
urethane block are also added to the figure, which are utilized to
assess the contribution of the polyurethane material during vari-
ous stages of loading. Here, the load response for the polyurethane
foam block of the filled sandwich panels is computed based on the
polyurethane foam behavior depicted in Fig. 6. Upon inspection,
the foam filled sandwich panels show a similar compressive
behavior as the unfilled but with higher peak load and stable load.
All the curves show the typical characteristics of cell structures
with an initial peak load, a plateau phase and a load increase at
densification. During the initial stage of loading, the load response
is fairly linear. The contribution of the polyurethane foam to the to-
tal load response up to the initial peak point is marginal and the
confined truss members carry majority of the load. After the linear
region, all the curves show a load drop associated with the buck-
ling of truss members and then exhibit a long plateau region. Com-
pared with the unfilled cores, the peak load has been improved by
about 20%. There is because the filled foams have a tendency to
provide a rotational moment to the truss members which can inhi-
bit the premature buckling. As further increase in the applied load-
ing, the contribution of the polyurethane foam to the total load
increases due to densification. Consequently, the load carrying
capacity is further enhanced. With regard to the anomalous phe-
nomenon for the foam filled specimen A when the displacement
is 5.2 mm–5.8 mm, the load carrying ability is lower than that of
the unfilled, the reason is as follows. Due to the truss members
of un-filled specimen A without the constraint from foams, the
plastic hinges are prior to form in the compression tests, which im-
pinge the facesheets on account of severe deformation and gives
rises to more ‘‘truss members’’ to support the compressive load
[19], thus the load resistance increase precedes that of the foam
filled specimen. Upon inspection of the failure specimen, shear
deformation and foam crack are observed, as shown in Fig. 8.
It is instructive to compare the load response of the foam filled
specimen with the sum of the polyurethane block and the unfilled
pyramidal lattice core sandwich specimen. It is observed that the
total load response of the foam filled specimen is greater than that
308 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310
Fig. 9. The comparisons between the load response of the foam filled sandwich
specimens and that of the polyurethane added to the unfilled specimens. The
shaded portion indicates the synergy during tests. (a) Specimen A; (b) specimen B
and (c) specimen C.
the sum of unfilled sandwich specimen and the polyurethane block
besides the specimen A at the displacement 5.2 mm–5.8 mm. This
synergistic load enhancement for the specimen A, B and C is shown
in the shaded portions in Fig. 9a–c, respectively. This behavior sug-
gests that the load response of the foam filled specimen is not lin-
ear with respect to the individual response of the unfilled
specimen and the filled material. This synergistic effect is due to
the filled material can provide additional constraint to the truss
members, which improves the buckling load and adds the post-
buckling stiffness. The anomalous region in Fig. 9a is contributed
Fig. 10. The comparisons between the energy absorption efficiency of the foam
filled, the polyurethane added to the unfilled and the unfilled specimens. (a)
Specimen A; (b) specimen B and (c) specimen C.
to the load resistance increase is prior for the unfilled specimen
A due to the densification of lattice core, which has been explained
above.
Although the load response to evaluate the effects of filled poly-
urethane block is workable as it is directly related to the load car-
rying capacity, the best way to quantify this enhancement effects is
the energy absorption efficiency, in which the influence of added
weight is also considered. The comparative performance of energy
absorption efficiency for the filled, the unfilled and the sum of the
unfilled specimen and the filled foam is given in Fig. 10, which is
calculated based on the load response in Fig. 7. We see that the
 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310 309

(a) The damage on the top facesheet

Filled
Unfilled

00
00
900 5mm
900 5mm

The damage on the top facesheet

(b) Filled
Unfilled

00 00

900 5mm
900 5mm

The damage on the top facesheet

Filled Unfilled

(c)

00 00

5mm 900 5mm

900

The damage on the bottom facesheet

(d) The damage on the top facesheet

Filled

Unfilled

00
00
900 5mm
900 5mm

Fig. 11. Impact load and absorbed energy versus time plots of foam filled specimen B against the unfilled specimen. (a) The specimen impacted on site SN at the energy of 5 J;
(b) the specimen impacted on site SN at the energy of 10 J; (c) the specimen impacted on site SN at the energy of 25 J and (d) the specimen impacted on site SM at the energy
of 5 J. The impact damage of the filled specimens is also shown.
310 G. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 108 (2014) 304–310
energy absorption efficiency of filled composite panels improves as
the compressive strain increase. In Fig. 10a, it is found that the
enhancement effect of the foam for the sandwich panel is balanced
by the added weight. Consequently, the unfilled specimen has the
highest energy absorption, the following is the foam filled speci-
men and the lowest is the sum of the unfilled specimen and the
foam. The similar result can be found in [18], in which the load car-
rying ability of foam filled egg-box panels has been enhanced, but
the energy absorption per unit mass was slightly low due to the
mass increment. From Fig. 10b and c, we can see that the energy
absorption efficiency of foam filled specimen is lower than that
of the unfilled when the compressive strain is less than 0.2, but
it exhibits superior when the compressive strain arrives at 0.25
and the superiority enlarges as the strain increase. This can be ex-
plained that the enhancement effect of the filled foam is marginal
when the compressive strain is small as mentioned above, as the
strain increase, and the performance of the filled foam overcomes
the disadvantage of the added weight. In comparison with the
Fig. 10a–c, it seems that the filled foam for the energy absorption
efficiency of the low density core is negative. It attributes that
the influence of the added weight from the filled foams is stronger
than the enhancement effect to the truss members for this low
density core.
4.2. Low velocity impact test
The corresponding impact load and absorbed energy versus
contact time curves of the foam filled specimens associated with
the unfilled specimens are plotted in Fig. 11. From Fig. 11, it can
be seen that although the overall nature of the curves is very sim-
ilar, the contact duration between the impactor and the sandwich
specimens is shorter and the impact load has a slight increase for
the foam filled specimens. This is because the filled foam reinforces
the stiffness of specimens. Compared with the unfilled specimens,
the impact damage of the filled specimens, as shown in Fig. 11,
does not demonstrate apparent decrease. It seems that this filled
polyurethane foam has no significant influence on the impact re-
sponse of sandwich specimens under low velocity impact. Instead,
the optimal filled material possessing superior fracture toughness
may perform well in reinforcing the low velocity impact resistance.
This is the subject of ongoing work.
5. Conclusions
In the present study, the responses of pyramidal lattice core
sandwich panels filled with polyurethane foam under quasi-static
compressive load and the low velocity impact are investigated. The
compression tests demonstrate a synergistic effect that the foam
filled sandwich panels have a greater load carrying capacity com-
pared to the sum of the unfilled specimens and the filled polyure-
thane block, which is due to the lateral support to the truss
members provided by the filled foam. The energy absorption effi-
ciency of the foam filled sandwich panels with higher relative den-
sity (2.58% and 3.17%) cores is lower than the unfilled specimens
when the compressive strain is small, as a result of the added
weight. However, it exhibits superior when the compressive strain
arrives at about 0.25, and the superiority enlarges as the strain in-
crease. Nevertheless, the energy absorption of foam filled sandwich
panels with lower relative density (1.83%) lattice cores is inferior to
the unfilled specimens since that the influence of the added weight
is stronger than the enhancement effect produced by the filled
polyurethane foam. In the low velocity impact test, it is found that
this filled polyurethane foam does not demonstrate significant
influence on the impact resistance of sandwich specimens. This re-
search is a primary attempt of using filled material to enhance per-
formance the lattice core sandwich panels on the energy
absorption and impact resistance. Authors are working on by filling
different lightweight materials to low density lattice core sand-
wich panels to obtain excellent energy capacity and impact
resistance.
Acknowledgements
The present work is supported by the Major State Basic Re-
search Development Program of China (973 Program) under Grant
No. 2011CB610303, and the National Science Foundation of China
under Grant Nos. 90816024, 11202059 and 11222216.
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