Mechanical requirements and weight targets demand composite materials in various applications. With ever-increasing competition and path towards environmental sustainability has led the industry to think about durable, less dense, and environmentally friendly materials. Composite sandwich structures constructed with Honeycomb can effectively absorb impact in many engineering applications.

This study considers a sandwich structure with a paper honeycomb core and thin face sheets of thermoset polyurethane. The study’s objective was to replace the existing design of the automotive part with a lesser-weight sandwich composite structure. The orthotropic properties for composite structures are primarily calculated using EASYPBC and analytical methods. Correlation between the CAE and Analytical methods is established. Tests were conducted as per ASTM standards to validate these methods, and a comparison was made. The comparison between test, CAE, and Analytical methods was within the acceptable accordance of 10% variation. Orthotropic property extraction was done through Abaqus/CAE and Easy PBC, and static analysis was done using Abaqus using the orthotropic properties.

Once the co-relation was achieved for the test, analytical, and CAE methods, the orthotropic properties were used to simulate the actual application with the standard load cases. It was found that there was a weight reduction of almost 40% without compromising on the intended performance.

Biography- Keerthinath completed Mechanical engineering in 2011 from VTU Belgaum. He has more than ten years of experience in CAE and has been working with TATA Motors for the past three years.