Abstract

Composites are widely used in most of the industries and manufacturing units
because of its wide advantages. Composites are very light when compared to most
other woods and metals. Because the weight of the material is the key factor in any
manufacturing component, because less weight means better fuel efficiency.
Composite used flights include Boeing 787, Dreamliner. Apart from these, there are
many other factors that play an important role in the use of composites. They can
be termed into high Impact strength, Corrosion resistance, design flexibility, low
thermal conductivity, non-radar and most importantly Durable. Among the
composites, Sandwich composites are given special importance because of its light
weight which is made by joining/attaching two thin but stiff composites using foam
which gives them higher thickness providing them high bending stiffness. Stiffness
of the composites is to predict but the main idea is to estimate the strength. But
when these sandwich composites are subjected to 3-point bending they exhibit
failures in the tensile, compressive and buckling. This paper clearly explains about
the failures in the sandwich composites and experimental and Analytical data has
been taken into consideration for better understanding and clear picture.

Introduction
Sandwich composites is of greater importance and widely used because the idea of
sandwich composites is very suitable and amenable to the development of light
weight structures with high in-plane and flexural stiffness. Theses sandwich
composites consist of two thin face sheets usually made of composites and metals.
Core is the part of the sandwich composite that joins the two individual composites.
These are generally made of metallic and non-metallic honey combs, balsa wood
and trusses. In the sandwich composites, bending and in-plane loads are usually
taken by the faces with the support of the core giving them much needed strength
to withheld load without any deformation or failure.
Performance of Sandwich composites in general depend on the material properties,
geometric dimension and type of loads applied. Type of loading can be considered
as bending, shear and in-plane. And under these loading, composites exhibit various
failures. These failures can be easily analyzed by performing a thorough stress
analysis and applying failure criteria in the critical regions of the composites,
including the 3-Dimensional effects.
Possible cases of failure include tensile or compressive failures on the faces or the
thin sheets, de-bonding at the core or facing interface, stress failure under various
loads, core failure, wrinkling and buckling. Considering the failure criteria, this
paper tries to explain various reasons for failure of sandwich composites and what
measures have to be taken to avoid them.