Improving delamination resistance capacity of sandwich composite columns with initial face/core debond

Face-core delamination is one of the major problems of using sandwich composite structures composed of a thin composite face sheets of Eglass/epoxy along with a low density PVC foam core. An innovative cost-effective methodology of inserting pre-manufactured shear keys in foam-core grooves has been proposed in this manuscript which increases the delamination resistance capacity of initially delaminated sandwich composite column subjected to in-plane compressive loading. Manufacturing of the sandwich composite panels with shear keys along with detailed experimental and numerical investigations have been performed in this manuscript to demonstrate the potential of the proposed simple methodology which can be utilized for face-core delamination sensitive design and analysis of sandwich composite structures and/or components. Numerical simulation considering cohesive damage at the face/core interface is shown to accurately simulate behavior as observed in experimental investigation. A numerical parametric study has also been carried out to determine the effect of change in stiffness of the face sheets and the shear keys on the in-plane and out-of-plane global response of sandwich composite panels.