Composites & Lightweight Structures
Design and Optimization of a Novel Adaptive Additive Manufactured Honeycomb for Sandwich Structures
Sandwich structures are an efficient way to realize lightweight components with excellent bending performance, what additionally is beneficial to prevent buckling under compression or shear loads, and with a good potential to integrate functions (free space in the core). Flat or single curved sandwich geometries can easily be produced using typical homogenous core material semi-products (e.g. honeycombs or foams). Specific challenges in the realization of lightweight sandwich structures are to efficiently obtain double curved core elements and the introduction of punctual or line-loads.
A promising approach is combining lightweight fiber reinforced polymer facings with core elements made by additive manufacturing processes (using polymers, metals or fiber-reinforced polymers). This allows efficiently realizing complex shaped sandwich structures and to adapt the core performance to the local mechanical requirements.
A novel core design that is under investigation consists in a honeycomb based structure, adaptable to any free-form and double curved surfaces. The goal of this research is to develop an efficient computational framework for the design, optimization and manufacturing of the novel additive manufactured core with integrated load introduction elements for curved lightweight sandwich structures
Contact: Daniele Rocco