• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.10 no.2 s.39
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• pp.201-210
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• 2007

Sandwich composites made of glass fabric epoxy facesheets with aluminum honeycomb core or balsa core is considered for the structural design of bodyshell of a Korean Low Floor Bus. Initially, in order to select the optimal facesheet and core materials in design stage, the flexural response of a sandwich composite is a critical importance. In this study, theoretical formula which could easily and quickly evaluate and obtain the flexural responses such as deflection and flexural stiffness of a sandwich composite subjected to external load was established. This theory could calculate the flexural responses of sandwich composites with narrow as well as wide width and with facesheets of unequal thickness, and also distinguish between the bending and shear effects of deflection. Finite element analysis using ANSYS V10.0 was used to offer the best elements for real sandwich composites, and flexural test according to ASTM C393 was conducted to compare with the results of theoretical formula and finite element analysis. The results show that the flexural responses of sandwich composites using proposed theoretical formula is in good agreement with those of experiment and finite element method.

• Composites Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2014

For each construction material used, there is certain theoretical limit in sizes. For tall building construction, the reduction in slab weight is the first step to take in order to break such size limits. In this paper, the feasibility of such objective is proven and given by numerical analysis result. For a typical building slab, both concrete and advanced composite sandwich panels are considered. The concrete slab is treated as a special orthotropic plate to obtain more accurate result. For each panel, the deflection under the dead and live loads is compared, since both tensile and compressive strengths of the composites are far more higher than those of concrete. All types of sandwich panels considered, except one case, have self-weights less than one tenth of that of the reinforced concrete slab, with deflections less than that of the reinforced concrete slab.