Three-point bending properties of asymmetric aluminum sandwich panels with corrugated cores

Lightweight design in tank trucks has been important for quite some time to realize energy-saving and emission reduction, which will enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. This paper focus on the issue of lightweight design in the plate structures, and asymmetric corrugated sandwich panels are designed with approximately 20% of weight loss compared with existing solid aluminum plates. Aluminum sandwich panels with corrugated core having the platform structure are fabricated by molding and adhesive bonding techniques. Failure modes of asymmetric corrugated sandwich panels loaded by the three-point bending are analyzed theoretically, and their failure mode maps are also plotted. Three-point bending tests of asymmetric corrugated aluminum are compared with ones of the solid sheet, and used to verify the failure modes of asymmetric corrugated sandwich panels. Results obtained show that in the three-point bending tests, asymmetric corrugated aluminum sandwich panels are still significantly higher than solid aluminum sheets in stiffness and strength.