Assessment of non-adiabatic behaviour in thermoelastic stress analysis of composite sandwich panels

Crump, D.A. and Dulieu-Barton, J.M. (2012) Assessment of non-adiabatic behaviour in thermoelastic stress analysis of composite sandwich panels. Experimental Mechanics, 52, 829-842. (doi:10.1007/s11340-012-9601-9).

Abstract

A modified Arcan fixture (MAF) is described. The is to characterize polymer foam materials
with respect to their mechanical properties at room and at elevated temperatures. The MAF enables
the application of pure compression or high compression to shear bidirectional loading conditions that
is not possible with conventional Arcan fixtures. This paper focuses on the validation of the MAF setup
at room temperature. The tensile and shear behaviour of a cross linked PVC foam material is studied
using digital image correlation. Thermoelastic stress analysis is used to examine and validate the
uniformity and symmetry of the stress fields obtained. To account for the inhomogeneity of the strain
field across the specimen cross sections, a "correction factor" for the measured "gauge section" surface
strains has been determined using nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA). The measured mechanical
properties are in excellent agreement with measurements conducted using conventional test methods.

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