Stability analysis of stitched foam-core composite sandwich plates

The global buckling is one of the important failure modes of stitched foam-core composite sandwich plates. Considering the characters that the thicknesses of stitched foam-core composite sandwich are always relatively large and the thicknesses of face panel and core are obviously different, in addition that the stitching process influences the property evidently, the finite element program for stability analysis of stitched foam-core composite sandwich plates was written based on higher-order shear deformation theory. The calculation results revealed the consistency with the results in references and experiments. The relationship between the stability of stitched foam-core composite sandwich plates and stitching parameters (including step, space and radius of needle) and structural parameters (including stacking angles in face panel, thickness of the core and length of the sandwich) was discussed.