The Mechanical Behavior of Composite Corrugated Core Coated with elastomer for Morphing Skins

Iman Dayyani, S. Ziaei-Rad, M. Freiswell

Journal of Composite Materials June 2014 48:1623-1636

ABSTRACT

Coated composite corrugated panels have wide applications in engineering, especially in morphing skins where extreme anisotropic stiffness properties are required. The optimal design of these structures requires high-fidelity models of the panels that would be incorporated into multi-disciplinary system models. Therefore, numerical and experimental investigations are required that retain the dependence on the nonlinear static and dynamic behavior of these structures. Considering the nonlinear effects due to the material properties and mechanism of deformation, the mechanical behavior of composite corrugated laminates with elastomeric coatings is studied in this paper by means of numerical and experimental investigations. The importance of this work is that it provides detailed experimental and numerical models of the panel that can be used for further static and dynamic homogenization and optimization studies. In this regard, an investigation of the manufacturing method and an evaluation of the mechanical characteristics of the materials are presented. Then the tensile, hysteresis and three-point bending tests of the coated corrugated panels are analyzed and the mechanical behavior of the panel is simulated. The comparison studies demonstrate the accuracy of the finite element model to predict the mechanical behavior of the coated corrugated panels. Finally, two concepts to deal with the non-smooth surface of the panel during bending for the morphing skin application are proposed.

Keywords:

Glass fibers; elastomer; mechanical testing; finite element simulation; morphing skin

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