Authors: Ethan Layne, Tareq Hassan
Mentors: Juhyeong Lee
Insitution: Utah State University
A key design criterion for aerospace structural applications is specific mechanical property (i.e., mechanical property divided by the density of a material). Honeycomb sandwich panels which are commonly used in aerospace/aviation structural applications provide lightweight performance, however they have several drawbacks. They include (1) limited alteration of core geometric parameters, (2) few core material selections, and (3) a closed-cell core network. These limitations may be bypassed with 3D-printed lattice-core sandwich panels to provide customizable structural performance. This study investigates impact resistance of architectured sandwich panels designed with various core designs and infill densities. A series of 5~20J low-velocity impact (LVI) tests will be performed on 3D-printed ABS sandwich panels with honeycomb, gyroid, and triangle cores; with infill density varying from 5% to 15%. In this work, the effects of core geometry and corresponding infill density on LVI resistances will be studied to optimize the structural performance of 3D-printed ABS sandwich panels. The primary objective of this study is to characterize these novel sandwich structures with highly customizable 3D-printed complex cores, offering tailorable structure performance.