The Effect of the Fibre Orientation on the Failure Load of Face Sheets Composite Sandwich Beams.

Sandwich beams subjected to three points bending may fail in several ways, including tension or compression failure of the facing; face yielding and face wrinkling. In this paper three face sheets materials were used to study the effect of the fibre orientation on static failure of composite sandwich beams carbon/epoxy, kevlar/epoxy, glass/epoxy of stacking sequence [+θ/-θ] _3s, [0°/90°] _3s and [45°/-45°] _3s. The stresses in the face were calculated using maximum stress criterion and the simple beam theory, including transverse shear effect. The obtained different results show that the sandwich beams with carbon/epoxy, and glass/epoxy face sheets are the best materials, in return the kevlar /epoxy facing characterised by a low mechanical resistance in compressive and tensile. The critical failure loads, depends on the properties of the face sheets materials and the fibre orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]