Effect of axial compression on dynamic response of concurrently printed sandwich

Abstract

In this work, the sandwich is concurrently realized using high density polyethylene (HDPE) skins and syntactic foam core through three-dimensional printing (3DP). Syntactic foam core is printed using lightweight feedstock filaments having glass microballoons (GMBs) by 20–60 vol% embedded in HDPE. These lightweight filaments are used as feed material in FFF (fused filament fabrication) based three-dimensional printer. The concurrently printed sandwich is loaded axially in a compressive mode for investigating the influence of GMB loading on buckling and natural frequency. The experimental load–deflection data and modal analysis are utilized for estimating critical buckling load and natural frequencies, respectively, under axial compression. Increasing GMB content enhances load to buckle and frequency of the printed sandwiches. The natural frequency decrease with higher compressive loads. Furthermore, the fundamental natural frequency increases exponentially when these printed sandwiches are subjected to axial compression loads that are higher than the load required for critical buckling. The load–deflection data and frequency obtained experimentally are compared with numerical predictions deduced using finite element analysis (FEA), which are noted to match well. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd