Interfacial stresses in sandwich structures subjected to temperature and mechanical loads

Through sequential coupling of the differential equations for interfacial shearing and peeling stresses, concise closed-form strength-of-material solutions for these stresses in symmetric and non-symmetric sandwich structures subjected to the combined loadings of temperature, stretching, and bending have been developed. The free-edge effects of the interfacial shearing stress, the maximum magnitude of the interfacial shear stress, and the location of its occurrence are accurately modelled using a single high-frequency hyperbolic function. The analytical solutions have been validated against finite element analysis (FEA) solutions using four sandwich structures: one symmetric, two mildly asymmetric, and another severely asymmetric; and for three load cases: differential thermal expansion, differential mechanical stretching, and mechanical bending. The maximum deviation between the analytical and the FEA solutions for the interfacial shearing and peeling stresses for all the structures and load cases, including that for the severely asymmetric sandwich structure, was less than 15%.