Modeling of Metallic Sandwich Structures

All-metal sandwich construction holds promise for significant improvements in stiffness, strength and blast resistance for built-up plate structures. Analysis of the performance of sandwich plates under various loads, static and dynamic, requires modeling of face sheets and core with some fidelity. While it is possible to model full geometric details of the core for a few selected problems, this is unrealistic for larger complex structures under general loadings. A constitutive model can be proposed as an alternative means of modeling the sandwich core. The constitutive model falls within the framework of a compressible rate-independent, anisotropic elastic-plastic solid. In this paper, the model will be presented in details, along with numerical implementation in a finite element code, and benchmarks its performance against existing constitutive models.