An investigation of the strength and stiffness of weight-saving sandwich beams with CFRP face sheets and seven 3D printed cores

Although sandwich panels are widely used in the industry, limitations cores’ structure designs and materials restrain their use stiffness- or strength-critical applications without increasing beams’ dimensions. The of additive manufacturing over conventional fabrication methods enabled us to tune design according stiffness strength requirements overall Seven core structures were 3D printed Nylon PA12 using powder bed fusion tested for three-point bending test. novel combined, first time literature, with thin CFRP face sheets. small Re-entrant Gyroid achieved highest values respectively, while honeycomb performed poorest among all other structures. normalised samples weights gyroid recorded specific strength, making it ideal supporting weight-critical such as motorsport aerospace.