A novel fabrication method and mechanical behavior of all-composite tetrahedral truss core sandwich panel

A novel hot-press molding method was developed to manufacture all-composite sandwich panel with tetrahedral truss cores in this paper. The out-of-plane compressive and in-plane shear behaviors of this structure were investigated by experiments. The results have shown that the tetrahedral truss core sandwich panel had a high compressive specific strength compared to metallic truss core sandwich panels. The node failure was observed in the experimental process. Finite element analysis (FEA) with a progressive failure model was involved to simulate the damage evolution process and predict the mechanical properties. The analytical formulae were also presented to predict the stiffness and strength of sandwich panel. Good agreement was found between FEA calculated results and the experimental results. It is expected that this study can provide useful information for the fabrication and application of all-composite tetrahedral truss core sandwich panel.