Mechanical behaviors of C/SiC pyramidal lattice core sandwich panel under in-plane compression

Abstract C/SiC composite lattice-core sandwich panels combined with thermal insulation and load-bearing capacities are considered as the most promising candidates for thermal protection system (TPS). In this study, C/SiC pyramidal lattice-core sandwich panel with different inclination angles were fabricated using a compression molding and precursor infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP) method. In-plane compressive experiments are conducted to study the failure behavior of these sandwich panels. The analytical failure modes including elastic buckling, face sheet wrinkling, face sheet crushing and interlayer delamination are established to construct the mechanism maps. The effect of geometrical parameters on failure modes are symmetrically and analytically studied. Due to the limits of the cost, virtual tests are supplemented by finite element method (FEM). Face sheet crushing is experimentally observed for almost all specimens with different inclination angles, which is in good agreement with analytical predictions. Numerical simulation results show that interlayer delamination occurs at the attachment between face sheet and lattice core after elastic buckling and core shear buckling. This paper gives us some fundamental understanding of the mechanical response and failure mechanism of C/SiC composite lattice-core sandwich panels.