A refined analysis of the effective elasticity tensor for general cellular sandwich cores (Q5938351)

The authors determine the components of effective elasticity tensor for two-dimensional cellular sandwich cores in consideration of core pace sheet constraints. They homogenize the microstructure by means of a strain-energy-based RVE concept assuming that strain states, which are equivalent at the macroscopic level, lead to equal strain energy in a RVE whether the real microstructure or a quasi-homogeneous ``effective'' medium is considered. By decomposing cellular structure into the individual cell wall elements and the displacements for each cell, the authors evaluate the strain energy analytically. The displacement field of the core is approximated by a weighted superposition of the displacement field of the unconstrained core and an extension of the displacements of the face sheets into the core region. Since the approach is based on a kinematically admissible strain field in conjunction with the principle of minimum strain energy density, the results provide rigorous Voigt type bounds for effective normal and shear moduli. A good agreement between the theory and finite element solution is observed.