Global Buckling of Wide Sandwich Panels with Orthotropic Phases: An Elasticity Solution

There exist several formulas for the global buckling of sandwich plates, each based on a specific set of assumptions and a specific plate or beam model. It is not easy to determine the accuracy and range of validity of these rather simple formulas unless an elasticity solution exists. In this paper, we present an elasticity solution to the problem of global buckling of wide sandwich panels (equivalent to sandwich columns) subjected to axially compressive loading (along the short side). The emphasis on this study is on the global (single-wave) rather than the wrinkling (multi-wave) mode. The sandwich section is symmetric and all constituent phases, i.e., the facings and the core, are assumed to be orthotropic. The buckling problem is formulated as an eigen-boundary-value problem for differential equations, with the axial load being the eigenvalue. The complication in the sandwich construction arises due to the existence of additional “internal” conditions at the face sheet/core interfaces. Results are produced for a range of geometric configurations and these are compared with the different global buckling formulas in the literature.