Throug-thickness Shear Testing of Divinycell H130 Foam

Sandwich structures with thin, strong skin layers on both sides of a thick, compliant and light core combine low weight, high bending stiffness, high strength and high buckling resistance. These structures find use in many applications such as aircraft, marine applications and wind turbine blades. When used for wind turbine blades the sandwich structures are mainly made from FRP laminate skins and foam or balsa core. The shear properties of such sandwich shells are important design parameters. The shear stiffness of the core influences the deflections of the shell and the shear strength of the core may be limiting for the bending strength of the sandwich.