EFFECT OF CORE THICKNESS AND INTERMEDIATE LAYERS ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF POLYPROPYLENE HONEYCOMB MULTI-LAYER SANDWICH STRUCTURES

Sandwich structures are widely used in lightweight construction especially in aerospace industries because of their high specific strength and stiffness. This paper investigates the effect of core thickness and intermediate layers on the mechanical properties of a polypropylene honeycomb core/composite facing multilayer sandwich structure under three points bending. We developed a theoretical model which makes it possible to calculate the shear properties in multi-cores. The results obtained by this model are agreed with our experimental results, and the results obtained with bending test showed that the mechanical properties of the composite multilayer structures increase with core thickness and intermediate layers