An experimental-numerical approach of the metallic insert in CFRP/honeycomb sandwich structures under normal tensile load

Sandwich structures are widely used in the aerospace field, also for primary parts. However, due to the low strength of core properties, the failure behavior under high stress concentration such as joining position is hard to evaluate. This study is, at present, a key task to enable future exploitation of the joint for structural sandwich consisted of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) face and a Honeycomb core made of phenolic impregnated Nomex (TM) paper. Previous experimental investigations provided the failure mechanism of sandwich plates with hard points in the form of inserts, and special attention is focused on the problem of sandwich panels with inserts of the fully potted types. Numerical simulations are achieved in this work with good correlation based on experimental test.