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Experimental and numerical characterization

of honeycomb sandwich composite panels
ARTICLE in SIMULATION MODELLING PRACTICE AND THEORY NOVEMBER 2009
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Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Experimental investigation of static and fatigue behaviour of

composites honeycomb materials using four point bending tests
S. Belouettar a,*, A. Abbadi a,b, Z. Azari b, R. Belouettar c, P. Freres d
a

Centre de Recherche Public Henri Tudor, 29, Avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg, G.D of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
b
Laboratoire de Fiabilite Mecanique, Ecole des Ingenieurs de Metz, Ile du Saulcy, F-57045 Metz, France
c
Departement de Genie Civil, Universite Badji Mokhtar de Annaba, BP 12 Sidi Amar, DZ 23000 Annaba, Algeria
d
EURO-COMPOSITES, S.A. Zone Industrielle, L-6401 Echternach, G.D of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Available online 12 February 2008

Abstract
In this study static and fatigue behaviours of honeycomb sandwich composites, made of aramide bres and aluminium cores, are
investigated through four-point bending tests. Damage and failure modes are reported and discussed. Global and local parameters were
considered to evaluate the fatigue life of the analysed sandwich composites. Eects of core densities and the cell orientation (L or W) on
the maximum load and on the damage processes (initiation and evolution) are also investigated.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sandwich beam; Fatigue; Aramide bres; Aluminium honeycomb; Damage

1. Introduction
The use of sandwich structure continues to increase rapidly due to the wide elds of their application, for instance:
satellites, aircraft, ships, automobiles, rail cars, wind
energy systems, and bridge construction to mention only
a few. The sandwich composites are multi-layered materials
made by bonding sti, high strength skins facings to lowdensity core material (see Fig. 1). The main benets of
using the sandwich concept in structural components are
the high stiness and low weight ratios. These structures
can carry both in-plane and out-of-plane loads and exhibit
good stability under compression, keeping excellent
strength to weight and stiness to weight characteristics.
The many advantages of sandwich constructions, the development of new materials and the need for high performance and low-weight structures insure that sandwich
construction will continue to be in demand. Sandwich constructions are being considered for application to aircraft
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +352 54 55 80 500; fax: +352 42 59 91

333.
E-mail address: salim.belouettar@tudor.lu (S. Belouettar).
0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2008.01.015

primary structures, where durability and damage tolerance

is a rst rank consideration, therefore, understanding the
adverse eect of in-service events. In fact, expansion of
composite structure to sensitive elds, where high reliability is demanded, such as civil aviation, was so far restricted
by the poor knowledge of their behaviour under complex
dynamic loads. For widespread application and in order
to introduce sandwich in primary structures several challenges must be meet. Therefore, the structure needs to be
evaluated in order to prove that damage occurring during
the service life will not lead to failure or excessive structural
deformation until the damage is detected. In order to use
these materials in dierent applications, the knowledge of
their static and fatigue behaviours are required and a better
understanding of the various failure mechanisms under static and fatigue loadings conditions is necessary and highly
desirable.
The strength of the sandwich is a result of a combination
of properties from the skin, core and interface. Any damage accumulated in one, or more, of these base materials
will have an overall eect on the properties of the sandwich. It is imperative to understand how potential damage
occurs in service will aect structural performance. The

266

S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

Aluminium skin

Nomex/Aluminium
honeycomb core
Aluminium skin

Glue

Fig. 1. Schematic detailed description of the honeycomb sandwich

structure.

ability of the overall structure to behave fail-safe means the

ability of load redistribution after partial, obvious damage/
single failure without loss of overall structural load bearing
function is another key issue.
The fundamentals of sandwich constructions and
reviews of experimental and analytical methods are
described in early work by Allen [1] and recent works by
Zenkert [2]. Gibson and Ashby studied the in-plane stiness of honeycomb cores according to the bending model
of cell edges [3]. Masters and Evans developed a theoretical
model for predicting the in-plane elastic stiness of honeycomb cores based on the deformation of honeycomb cells
[4]. Becker studied the eective in-plane stiness of honeycomb cores and the thickness eect using the closed-form
description [5]. Meraghni et al. presented a new analytical
method to analyze the out-of-plane stiness of honeycomb
cores based on the modied laminate theory [6]. Regarding
to sandwich composites modelling, a complete review of
the various kinematics and theories could be found in the
work of Hu et al. [7].
From phenomenological point of view, fatigue behaviour of sandwich honeycomb composites can be evaluated,
in the global sense by stiness, residual strength or other
mechanical properties. Hwang and Han [8] proposed a fatigue modulus concept for fatigue life prediction of composite materials. It is suggested that changes in stiness might
be an appropriate measure of fatigue damage. Many investigators [912] have examined the eectiveness of the stiness degradation in composite materials as a measure of
accumulated damage. As residual strength, stiness and life
are aected by fatigue damage, only residual stiness can
be monitored non-destructively [13]. While residual
strength demonstrates minimum decrease with the increase
in the number of cycles until a stage close to the end of life
of the specimen, when it begins to change then abruptly
and is destructive in real sense. On contrary, stiness exhibits greater changes during fatigue specically at the early
stage of fatigue life of specimen [14]. Much important work
on residual stiness has been done by Reifsnider et al. [15].
Wen-Shyong et al. [16] selected the residual stiness as a
parameter to describe the degradation behaviour and to
predict the fatigue life. There is interesting feature in stiness degradation approach that only limited amount of

data is needed for obtaining reasonable results [17]. Kim

[18] reported in his studies that the reduction of bending
strength of foam cored sandwich specimen is caused by
the stiness reduction of foam due to ageing of polyurethane foam during fatigue cycles. Shenoi et al. [19] investigated the static and exural fatigue characteristics of foam
core polymer composite sandwich beams. Failure modes
relate to both core shear and skin failure. Burman and
Zenkert [20] also tested the fatigue characteristic of two cellular foam core materials as used in load carrying sandwich
structures. Judawisastra et al. [21] studied the bending fatigue behaviour of pure epoxy and 3D woven sandwich composites. Panels with dierent core properties were selected.
The results of the stiness degradation correlated well with
the mechanical properties of the sandwich structure.
Focusing on sandwich materials and structures, an
investigation on how material properties and geometrical
conguration can aect damage and fatigue damage has
not extensively investigated. Of utmost importance, which
is the very basis for the use of a sandwich, is the high bending stiness and strength to weight ratios, which is achieved
when the face and core interact in an optimal way. It is
hence most important to have a comprehensive knowledge
of the sandwich static and fatigue performance.
This paper hopes to address some deciency in the analysis of static and fatigue Nomex and aluminium honeycomb sandwich composites and also provides new
ndings on the analysis of the fatigue of honeycomb structures. The rst and foremost step in this paper is to develop
an experimental investigation describing the pure bending
behaviour of sandwich composite panels under static and
cyclic fatigue behaviours. As composite structures, exible
structures have, for pure bending loading, signicant displacements and rotations. The design and the dimensioning
of these structures require good material characterization
beyond the small deformations domain. An additional outcome of this study is the analysis of the core density and the
cell orientation (L or W) eects on the maximum load and
on the process of damage.
2. Material specimens
The Honeycomb sandwich panels are provided by EuroComposites (Luxembourg) and intended for the aircraft
industry. The geometrical dimensions of the specimen are
shown in Table 1. The faces of a thickness equal to
0.60 mm are made of aluminium (AlMg3), the core structure is made either from aluminium (ECM) sheets or from
aramide bres (ECA) folded and glued together (Fig. 1)
forming a hexagonal cell structure. As in the standard layTable 1
Specimen dimensions
L
(mm)

b
(mm)

h
(mm)

hc
(mm)

tf
(mm)

L2
(mm)

L1
(mm)

d = hc + tf
(mm)

500

250

10

8.80

0.60

420

210

9.40

S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

Table 2
Mechanical properties of faces made of aluminium
Youngs modulus
(MPa)

Strength to failure
(MPa)

Maximum elongation
(%)

70,000

367

13

Table 3
Mechanical properties of the cores [22]
Core

Cell size
Density (kg/m3)
Shear resistance L (MPa)
Shear modulus L (MPa)
Shear resistance W (MPa)
Shear moudulus W (MPa)
Compression resistance (MPa)

Aluminium core

Fibre aramide core

ECM

ECA

6.4
82
2.40
430
1.40
220
1.50

9.6
55
1.48
253
0.88
170
2.75

3.2
4.8
1.32
51
0.56
49
2.10

3.2
144
3.50
128
2.20
94
15.20

out for commercial honeycombs, the assembly of the structure produces some cell walls with double thickness. In the
tested conguration these double thickness walls were parallel to the specimen longitudinal axis. The honeycomb
core is an opened cell with various densities of 55 kg/m3
and 82 kg/m3 of aluminium core and 48 kg/m3 and
144 kg/m3 of aramide bre core, respectively. The cell size
is 6.4 and 9.6 mm for aluminium core and 3.2 mm for aramide bres core, respectively. The geometrical and
mechanical properties of the panels are depicted in tables
(Tables 2 and 3).
3. Experimental method
Both static and fatigue tests were carried out through a
four-point bending testing xture device schematically
shown in Fig. 2. Such device, designed and built expressly
for these tests, was connected to a servo-hydraulic universal testing machine INSTRON model 4302 controlled by
an INSTRON electronic unit. The electronic unit performs
the test control and the data acquisition. Another PC
equipped with a NI acquisition device was used to acquire
the load and stroke signals. Load was measured with a

tf

Ec, Gc
H

tc

Ef

Fig. 2. Sketch of the four point bending test and specimen dimensions.

267

10 kN strain-gage load cell directly mounted on the testing

machine cross head, while stroke was measured by means
of a LVDT transducer directly connected between the
frame of the testing machine and the head of the hydraulic
actuator. The design of the xture device allows the inner
supports to rotate around the neutral axis of the specimen.
When a damaged specimen is tested, the specimen deformation is asymmetric due to the dierent bending stiness
of the two portions (with and without defect) of the specimen. The rotation of the inner supports allows the testing
device to adapt the testing conditions, following the asymmetric displacement of the specimen. In this way it is possible to obtain that, during the whole loading process, the
same loads are applied on both the inner supports and consequently to keep the four point bending condition. To
apply the loading signal, a Labview program has been set
which enables to introduce all points of the cycle. The portions of specimen between the inner and the outer supports
are loaded with a constant shear force. The bending
moment raises linearly from the outer support to the inner
one. The portion of specimen between the two inner supports is loaded with a constant bending moment while
the shear force is zero. The maximum value of the bending
moment is in the portion between the two inner supports.
Two kinds of tests, static and fatigue, were performed on
undamaged specimens.
4. Static tests results
Static tests were carried out on all congurations at
room temperature in stroke control mode at a constant displacement rate of 2 mm mn 1 in order to archive a quasistatic loading condition according to the military standards: MIL-STD-401 DIN 53291.
Four replicate sandwich specimens of dierent densities
and in two dierent congurations were tested. Static tests
were performed before fatigue ones with the aim of evaluating both the stiness and the ultimate strength of the
specimens in order to set properly the load cycling amplitude for the fatigue tests. During the tests the displacement
of the inner supports of the four-point bending rig and the
total applied load were acquired. From these data the specimen bending stiness was calculated as slope of the initial
portion of the bending moment-displacement curve by
means of a linear regression.
A typical loading maximum displacement curves are
shown in Figs. 36. The analysis of the experimental results
of the static four point binding tests permit to make the following statements: the sandwich composite stiness
increases when increasing the core density and the load
to failure increases with increasing cores densities; the maximum loads are higher in the L-direction than in the Wdirection for low densities and almost of the same order
of higher core densities values and the maximum deection
is higher in L conguration than in the W for the same
sandwich core. Considering together aramide bres and
aluminium cores, the sandwich panels with aramide bres

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S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

7

Loads (kN)

Loads (kN)

density 82kg/m3
(Alu-Alu)

144kg/m3
W

48kg/m3
W

55kg/m3

(Alu-Alu)
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

20

40

60

80

100

Max. deflection (mm)

Max. deflection (mm)

Fig. 3. Evolution and comparison of the deection according to the

applied vertical load for the L- and W-directions. The cores are made of
aluminium (55 kg/m3 and 82 kg/m3).

Fig. 5. Evolution and comparison of the deection according to the

applied vertical load. The cores are made of aramide bres (48 kg/m3 and
144 kg/m3) and W-oriented.

5.5
5.0
5
4.5

(L)

4.0

Loads (kN)

Loads (kN)

3.5

3.0
2.5
2.0

(W)

w
1.5
1

1.0
0.5

0.0
0

10

15

20

25

Max. deflection (mm)

Fig. 4. Comparison of the deection according to the applied vertical

load. The cores are made of aluminium (55 kg/m3) and L-oriented.

are almost more ductile than those made of aluminium

cores. In all cases the trend was as expected up the failure
and therefore no change in the specimen stiness was
detected, while the failure appeared abruptly.
The visual and optical observations made on the damaged honeycomb sandwich panels point out that all the
specimens failed due to face wrinkling: a local buckling
of the compressed face; an indentation and plastic deformations of faces at the loads application area and to cell
walls wrinkling in the zone between the load application
zone and the support zone. It appears from these observations that the failure modes depend essentially on the nature of core itself: material, density and cells orientation.

10

15

20

25

30

Max deflection (mm)

Fig. 6. Comparison of the deection according to the applied vertical load

for the L- and W-directions. The cores are made of aramide bres of
48 kg/m3 density.

Indeed, for honeycomb cores made of aramide bre of a

density of 48 kg/m3 and W-oriented the failure is almost
characterized by cell walls buckling (Fig. 7), small indentation of the faces in the vicinity of the loading application
and a plastic deformation of the sandwich skins. On the
other hand, for L-oriented conguration the failure is
essentially due to a signicant faces wrinkling in the vicinity of the load application zones (Fig. 13). Fig. 8 illustrates
the failure modes of L-oriented and W-oriented aluminium
core of a density of 55 kg/m3. These damages are essentially characterized by cell walls buckling in the zone
between the load application and the xed support and

S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

269

Fig. 7. Failure modes of sandwich with aramide bre honeycomb core of 48 kg/m3 density.

Fig. 8. Failure modes of sandwich with aluminium honeycomb core of 55 kg/m3.

to a signicant skins wrinkling. On the contrary, the failure

modes (Fig. 9) in the case of aluminium cores with a
density 82 kg/m3 and W-oriented are essentially due to
the skin wrinkling and a signicant buckling of the cell
walls. Also, it is important to mention that in the case of
sandwich made of aramide bres cores and of high density
(144 kg/m3), the failure is essentially due the important

Fig. 9. Failure modes of sandwich with aluminium honeycomb core of

82 kg/m3 and W-oriented.

wrinkling of the faces (see Fig. 10). Table 4 summarizes

the various failures observed modes for the dierent tested
congurations.
5. Fatigue test results
The objectives of the investigated tests were to obtain
basic knowledge on the fatigue behaviour of honeycomb
sandwich composites as the standard stress-life, SN diagrams and fatigue damage modes. Tests were performed
at a room temperature under direct load control, while
the load cycling amplitudes were chosen on the basis of
the static test results. The test load was sinusoidal with a
frequency f = 2 Hz and a load ratio R = 0.1 and a constant
amplitude loading. With such load ratio the face in contact
with the outer supports was submitted to time varying inplane tensile stresses, while the other face that is in contact
with the inner supports was submitted to time varying

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S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

Fig. 10. Static failure modes of sandwich with aramide bre honeycomb core of 144 kg/m3. The L-specimens failed in local buckling of the face while the
W specimens showed an anticipated core shear failure.

Table 4
Principal failure modes under of honeycomb structure under static four
point bending test
Core
material

Density
(kg/m3)

Cell
orientation

Observed failure mode

Reference

Aramide
bres

48

Small buckling of the

cell walls and face
wrinkling
Important buckling of
the cell walls and
signicant face
wrinkling
Small buckling of the
cell walls et face
wrinkling
Face wrinkling and cell
walls buckling
Cell walls buckling,
face wrinkling
Important face
wrinkling
Local cell walls
buckling
Important Local
wrinkling of the skins

Fig. 7

Aluminium

55

L
Aluminium

82

W
L

Aramide
bres

144

W
L

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 8

Fig. 8

applicable load vary with the dierent congurations and

with the dierent load ratios the levels were slightly
adjusted accordingly. The fatigue life of the specimens is
characterized as the number of cycles to ultimate failure.
The number of cycles from crack initiation to nal fracture
was in all cases short when compared to the fatigue life.
The variation of the stiness during the major part of the
lifetime was insignicant. The stiness did not decrease
below 90% of the original stiness until just before nal
failure. During this last part of the fatigue life the degradation was more pronounced due to the crack formation further discussed below.
The fatigue curves in terms of load level versus the
number of cycles, shown in Figs. 1113, illustrate a qualitative comparison between the fatigue lifetime of sandwich
composites made of aramide bres cores and aluminium
cores. It comes out that for honeycomb sandwich
composites, made of aramide bres cores, the lifetime of

Fig. 10
Fig. 10

1.1

Load level, F app/F sta,max

1.0

in-plane compressive stresses. In this way it has been possible to evaluate separately the eect of a tensile and a compressive stress eld on the fatigue behaviour of the tested
specimen. The value of the specimen bending stiness
was monitored during all the tests in order to gather information about the possible reduction of the sandwich structural properties with fatigue cycling. Fatigue data were
generated at load levels of 100%, 90%, 80%, 70%, 65%
and 60% of the static ultimate load. Two core densities
are used: 48 kg/m3 (aramide bres) and 82 kg/m3 (aluminium) and a minimum of three specimens within each conguration. The data acquisition performed monitored the
stiness variation during the tests using the output signals
of the load cell and the deection of the hydraulic piston.
However, since the fatigue threshold and maximum

sens L
0.9

NR =854331
0.8

r=F app/F sta,max =0.5

sens W

0.7

0.6

10000

Alu/Alu, 82 kg/m3

100000

1000000

Cycles to failure, NR

Fig. 11. Comparison of the fatigue lifetime of the L and W congurations

in terms of load level vs cycles to failure.

S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

1.2

Load level, F app/F sta,max

1.1

1.0

0.9

-0.08378
0.8

0.7

0.6

NR =1.07E07
r=F app/F sta,max =0.5

0.5
1000

10000

100000

1000000

1E7

Cycles to failure, NR

Fig. 12. Fatigue curves in terms of load level vs cycles to failure. The cores
are made of aramide bres and of density of 48 kg/m3, direction L and W.

the L conguration (Fig. 12) is larger than in the W-direction at constant load level. After extrapolation of the two
(L and W congurations) fatigue curves, one notices the
intersection of these curves for a load level of 0.5 (Fig. 12)
and a lifetime of 1.07  107 cycles. Notice also from
Fig. 13 that for a given load level, the lifetime of honeycomb
structure made of aluminium cores are signicantly larger
than the lifetime of material made of aramide bres cores
in all analysed situations. Also, it is not worthy to mention
that the endurance limits for both congurations are
roughly similar for two analysed materials and corresponds
to 60% (see Figs. 11 and 12) of the maximum loading.
The following discussions regarding the fatigue failure
processes are only based on visual inspection of the free
sides of the beams. For sandwich structures made of aramide bres, both W and L congurations failed in shear
with a crack propagating through the thickness of the core
(details are shown on Fig. 15). The failure propagation is
always in the diagonal direction in the case of the L conguration and horizontal for the W one. In both cases, cracks

271

or micro defects appear before any macro size crack is

formed. Crack propagation in one direction, subjected to
an opening load during half of load cycle, is unaected
by the cracks growing in the other diagonal direction since
these cracks are closed. Hence, cracks initiate from the
crack tip of the horizontal macro crack: one growing
upwards during half the load cycle and the other one growing downwards during the other half of the load cycle.
Notice here that the nal crack length is independent of
the maximum load and loading ratio. We also noticed a
subsequent shear buckling (Fig. 15) of the vertical cell walls
in the centre region between the inner and outer support
from the rst load cycles as well as the formation of several
clusters of small horizontal cracks in the cell walls formed
within separate cell as shown in Fig. 15. The fatigue cracks
formation in the L conguration is similar to those in the
W conguration. However, the number of observed micro
cracks was signicantly less important and the failure was
more abrupt. In both cases, the fracture pattern of a diagonal crack is the same (Fig. 15) and not aected by the
number of cycles to failure.
When applying high loads i.e. 7080% of the static failure load, some specimens failed in the region close to the
supports rather than the expected central region. In that
case, the crack did not initiate directly at the support but
near the support corner. Two factors can explain this
behaviour; the small transverse (or compressive) stresses
close to the supports and the thermal inuence from the
warm loading piston and support.
Regarding the fatigue failure process of sandwich composites made of aluminium core, the failure is constantly
caused by cracking (Fig. 16) in the lower face of sandwich.
This observation is applicable for the two considered congurations. We also observed a subsequent shear buckling
of the vertical cell walls in the centre region between the
inner and outer support from the rst load cycles. This
buckling did however not induce any signicant change
of stiness. Fig. 14 shows the evolution crack length
according to the applied load. One can see from Fig. 14
that in the W conguration case, the crack propagation

6.0
5.5

Alu/Alu, 82 kg/m3

Alu/Alu, 82

kg/m3
Load level [kN]

Load level [kN]

5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5

W-configuration
Al3u/A. fibres, 48 kg/m3
3

L
3.0

Alu/aramide 48 kg/m3
2

2.5
100000

1000000

Cycles to failure, NR

1000

10000

100000

1000000

Cycles to failure, NR

Fig. 13. Comparison of the fatigue lifetime of two sandwich structures. The cores are made of aramide bres of a density of 48 kg/m3 and aluminium of a
density of 82 kg/m3.

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S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

140

140

Alu/Alu, density 82 kg/m3

Alu/Alu, core density 82 kg/m3

120

Crack length, a [mm]

Crack length, a [mm]

120

100

Zone I
80

Zone II
High load level

Low load
level

60

100

80

W
60

40
3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0

40
10000

100000

Applied load [kN]

1000000

Cycles to failure, NR

Fig. 14. Evolution of the crack length vs the applied load and vs the number of cycles to failure for the sandwich structure made of aluminium core of a
density of 82 kg/m3.

W-configuration

L-configuration

Top view
y
y
x
x

Side view
z
x

Fig. 15. Failure modes of the aramide bres cores in the W and L-directions.

Fig. 16. Failure modes of the aluminium core in the W and L-directions.

is almost stationary in the zone I for low loads level. While

in zone II (high level loads), the crack propagation is
almost stationary for the L conguration. From Fig. 14,

we observe that L and W congurations are roughly similar

in terms of crack length in the zone I. On the contrary, the
variation is more signicant in the zone II. We can

S. Belouettar et al. / Composite Structures 87 (2009) 265273

conclude that when fatigue is a concern, the L conguration appears more suitable.
6. Summary and conclusion
Fatigue tests in four-point bending were performed on
two dierent sandwich congurations; one with an aluminium cores and one with aramide bres cores. The fatigue
test results were presented in standard S/N diagrams. It
was also found from this experimental program that the
stiness might not be a good monitoring measure for the
health of a specimen. When the stiness starts to
decrease during the last part of the fatigue life tests there
was already considerable damage present in the core material. The damage formation process in the test specimens
could be described as follows: damage initiated in the zone
of high shear stresses over the entire length of the zone and
in the middle of the specimen. An investigation of the inuence of support distances was made concluding that the
size of the failure process zone depended on the lengths
between the load supports. For structural fatigue, when
considering sandwich with aluminium core, the L conguration appears more suitable.
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