Flexural effects of sandwich beam with a plate insert under in-plane bending

The local stress concentrations in sandwich beam with a plate insert under in-plane bending are concerned in the study. An improved six-step phase shifting method in digital photoelasticity is employed to calculate the whole-field shear stress.The shear load transfer is realized by shear bands which connect the top and bottom sheet faces through adhesively-bonded interfaces. The plate insert plays a role in load transfer in the sandwich structure, and the fact that debonding might occur at more sites of the interfaces may also leads to the failure of the structure. The local stress concentrations at the insert end change with the load under three-point bending loads, while they remain as the initial residual shear stress under four-point bending loads. The local stress concentration effects generated by the plate insert is essentially caused by the mismatch of elastic properties of the core materials and the irrational geometry of the insert.

► An improved six-step phase shifting method is employed to calculate whole-field shear stress.
► A plate insert plays a role in load transfer in sandwich structure.
► The load transfer is realized by shear bands.
► The improved method should have more practical engineering applications.