Local bending containment in sandwich panels with sub-surface core damage

Abstract

A simple repair technique to contain the local facesheet bending in sandwich panels with sub-surface core damage has been explored using experiments. The strategic filling of honeycomb cells in the damage region using polymeric resin has been used to repair impact/ indentation damaged sandwich panels. The effectiveness of repair was measured using edgewise compression tests. The test results indicate that the best bending containment is achieved by filling a honeycomb cell at the center of the damage region and at the periphery of the damage region along the line of potential failure. The residual strengths of repaired sandwich panels improved to 87—92% of that of the undamaged panel.