Experimental investigation of impact behavior of wood-based sandwich structures

Low carbon emission and sustainable development are shared goals throughout the transportation industry. One way to meet such expectations is to introduce lightweight materials based on renewable sources. Sandwich panels with plywood core and fiber reinforced composite skins appear to be good candidates. Additional properties of wood such as fire resistance or thermal and acoustic insulation are also essential for many applications and could lead to a new interest for this old material. In this paper, Sandwich panels with two different types of plywood and four different skins (aluminum and glass, CFRP, or flax reinforced polymer) are tested under low-velocity/low energy impacts and their behavior is discussed.