ABSTRACT
The compressive stresses introduced into the faces of the sandwich subjected to a uniform axial compressive load. The sandwich shell can also undergo overall buckling. In addition to overall buckling, a sandwich construction subjected to in-plane compressive loads can undergo several localized buckling instabilities. For the case of foam-core and honeycomb core construction, these consist of face wrinkling and core shear instability. Since face wrinkling and core shear instability are local failures, it is reasonable that these expressions, developed for flat panels, are equally usable for circular cylindrical shells in which the sandwich shell wall thickness to radius ratio is small compared to unity. A fourth buckling mode can occur in a honeycomb sandwich construction—face dimpling or monocell buckling. The buckling of shells in axial compression is very sensitive to initial imperfections such that shells buckle at a fraction of the load predicted by various theoretical analyses.
