Bending of nonsymmetric sandwich beams with transversely flexible core

The bending behavior of an unsymmetrical sandwich beam with a flexible, foam-type core is investigated analytically. The beam consists of different skins, upper and lower, metallic or composite-laminated, and a soft core. The analysis includes the effects of the flexibility of the core, in the vertical direction, on the bending behavior of the skins, as well as on the overall behavior. The behavior of the beam is a superposition of two substructures; the first one is a beam in which the height of the core remains unchanged while shear effects are included; and the second one is a beam in which the height of the core is not kept and is free of shear stresses. The superposition loads and locations that should be applied to each substructure are determined analytically. The proposed analysis is general and applicable to any type of loading, distributed or concentrated, and allows the loads to be located either at the upper or the lower skins, or at both, yielding different behaviors. The characteristics of the overall behavior, particularly the peeling and the shear stresses between the skins and the core, are studied.