Plastic analysis of multilayer sandwich beams with metal foam cores

The plastic behavior of fully clamped multilayer sandwich beams with metal foam cores is investigated. A plastic yield criterion for multilayer sandwich structures with metal foam cores is proposed. Analytical solutions are derived for the multilayer sandwich beams transversely loaded by a flat punch considering the interaction of bending and stretching induced by large deflections. Numerical calculations are carried out, and good agreement is achieved between the analytical solutions and numerical results. The effects of the multilayer, punch size and core strength are discussed. Using the analytical formulae, optimal design charts are constructed to maximize the load-carrying capacity of the multilayer sandwich beams for a given mass. It is demonstrated that the present analytical model can reasonably predict the post-yield behavior of the multilayer sandwich beams with metal foam cores.