Analysis of Large Scale Composite Components Using TSA at Low Cyclic Frequencies

Thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA) has been applied to large scale honeycomb core sandwich structure with carbon fibre face sheets. The sandwich panel was subjected to a pressure load using a custom designed test rig that could only achieve low cycle frequencies of 1 Hz. Two calibration approaches have been discussed and investigated to allow the use of the thermoelastic response as a validation tool for the stress distribution predicted by an FE model. The TSA data was calibrated using thermoelastic constants derived experimentally using tensile strips of the face sheet material. It has been shown that by using constants obtained from the tensile strips manufactured with the same lay-up as the face sheet of the sandwich panel it was possible to achieve a good correspondence between the predicted stress distribution and the measured TSA response.