Metal foam sandwich composites: Contact damage, residual bending strength and energy absorption

Structural components made of metal foam sandwich composites can be locally damaged during handling or in impact accidents. It is imperative for their design to account for the response of the sandwich composites to local damage of varying sizes, and to estimate their residual strength under operating loading conditions. This paper presents an experimental study of the deformation and failure mechanisms of sandwich composites made of closed-cell aluminium foam core (ALPORAS) and carbon fiber skins. The composites are first subjected to quasi-static indentations with spherical indenters of various diameters and then loaded in quasi-static four-point bending until failure. The failure modes in both loading cases were analysed, and the residual compressive and tensile strength in bending was determined along with their dependence on the induced damage