Parametric Modeling of Flexural Response of Sandwich Composites

The mechanical response of textile-reinforced aerated concrete sandwich panels was modeled for flexural loading. The core material used in the sandwich composite consisted of plain autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) and fiber-reinforced aerated concrete (FRAC). The stress skins for the sandwich beams were made out of AR-glass (ARG) textiles embedded in a cementitious matrix. A constitutive material model comprised of a multi-linear tension model for the bottom stress skin and an elastic-perfectly plastic compression model for the top stress skin. The core was modeled using an elastic-perfectly plastic tension and compression model. A detailed parametric study was conducted to determine the effect of the model parameters on the flexural response of the sandwich composite. The model was further applied to simulate the experimental flexural data from the static tests on sandwich composite beams. Flexural strength, stiffness, and energy absorption capacity can be determined for both static loadings. It is observed that textile reinforcement at the tension and compression faces of the beam element results in a ductile behavior using multiple flexural cracking, leading to diagonal tension cracking in the core element. The distributed cracking mechanism in the sandwich composite significantly improves the flexural properties by 5–10 times when compared to the plain aerated concrete specimens which predominantly exhibit single flexural cracks.