Nowadays, advanced composite material are widely used in civil & architectural structures. Analysis of foam core sandwich bridges for simple supported made by advanced composite materials is presented in this paper. For the design of advanced composite materials bridge, foam core shape is economical and profitable. Navier’s solutions are compared in this paper to verify the authenticity of Finite Difference Method. Finite Difference Method is used for analysis of the pertinent problems. In this study, reduction rate of tensile strength for E-glass fibers due to increase in size, strength reduction ratios of according to mass, stress changes according to form core height and safety ratio due to increase form core height is presented. Tasi-Wu failure strength theory are used. Strength reduction is necessary for safe design of a structures.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate to the practicing engineers, how to apply the advanced composite materials theory to the slab bridges. For general construction material used, there is certain theoretical limit in sizes. For super slab bridges construction, the reduction in panel weight is the first step to take in order to break such size limits. For a typical slab bridges panel, both concrete and advanced composite sandwich panels are considered. The concrete panel is treated as a special orthotropic plate. Advanced composite sandwich panels are considered as a self-weights less than one tenth of that of concrete panel, with deflections less than that of the concrete panel. This conclusion gives good guide line for design of the light weight of slab bridges.
Recently, the need of weight reduction has been required in automobile industry. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the composite sandwich panel to substitute original steel structure of commercial vehicle. The compressive and drum-peel tests were conducted to consider core materials and resin system of the sandwich panel. Based on the test, we decided the core reinforcement and matrix materials of the panel. As a result, the composite panel were composed of aluminum profile, glass fiber prepreg and aluminum honeycomb. We also confirmed the weight reduction ratio and structural safety compared to prior steel structure components by bending test and FEM simulation.