Mechanical Characterization of Sandwich Composite Structure using a New Experimental Approach

In marine construction, ship hulls are subjected to high fatigue stresses due to the impact of waves and their cyclic solicitations. However, fatigue behaviour evaluation of the constitutive materials of hull is based on standard tests. The objective of this study is to take a critical view on the current standard test method set to investigate the fatigue life of cellular foam core material as used in high performance sandwich materials. The highlight of this study is to develop a new geometry of specimen in order to achieve coherence between the actual fatigue life time of the real structure and the one of specimens tested in a controlled laboratory environment. The tested specimen is made out of a high-density foam core and thin glass fabric faces. Moreover, a new test rig of different flexure types, in quasi-static or fatigue loadings on sandwich specimens, was developed and validated.