JMEPEG (2021) 30:5031–5038 ASM International

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-021-05604-8 1059-9495/$19.00

An Assessment of Fully Integrated Polymer Sandwich

Structures Designed by Additive Manufacturing
Bruno Dorneles de Castro, Frederico de Castro Magalhães, Túlio Hallak Panzera, and Juan Carlos Campos Rubio

Submitted: 30 November 2020 / Revised: 8 February 2021 / Accepted: 18 February 2021 / Published online: 12 March 2021

3D printing is an additive manufacturing technique (AM) widely used in the aerospace, shipbuilding,
automotive and civil construction sectors to obtain lightweight sandwich structures made with complex core
shapes to achieve excellent multifunctional properties, such as flexural stiffness, and high energy-absorption
capabilities. This study shows an experimental analysis of the mechanical behavior of three types of core,
including (i) out-of-plane and (ii) in-plane hexagonal honeycomb, and (iii) S-shape corrugated core. The
fused deposition modeling method (FDM) is applied in the manufacture of fully integrated sandwich
structures using polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer filaments. Tensile, flexural and Charpy impact tests are
used for the experimental investigation. The failure modes of polymeric structures are analyzed. The out-of-
plane -comb and S-shape corrugated panels achieve similar mechanical behavior, however, superior tensile
modulus, tensile strength, flexural modulus, flexural strength and energy absorbed are obtained in com-
parison with in-plane -comb core panels. Sandwich panels fabricated by AM achieve acceptable mechanical
properties for secondary structural applications, especially when lightness is required.

honeycomb, allowed unusual materials with negative PoissonÕs

Keywords 3D printing, Additive manufacturing, Mechanical
testing, Metamaterials, Panel core, Sandwich
structures
1. Introduction
Recently, the use of lightweight sandwich panels has gained
importance due to properties such as high flexural stiffness-to-
weight ratio and excellent thermal insulation. These materials
are made of relatively thin and rigid faces that are connected to
thicker and lighter cores, usually made of foam or prismatic
cores, and can offer an efficient combination in terms of
flexural stiffness and energy absorption capacity. These struc-
tures have been applied in several fields, including the
aerospace, automotive, naval, and military industries (Ref 1, 2).
Technical metamaterials that have remarkable properties
provided by architected structures have been developed for the
optimization of material weight. Filling patterns with repetitive
cell unit configurations, such as hexagonal and reentrant
This invited article is part of a special topical focus in the Journal of
Materials Engineering and Performance on Additive Manufacturing.
The issue was organized by Dr. William Frazier, Pilgrim Consulting,
LLC; Mr. Rick Russell, NASA; Dr. Yan Lu, NIST; Dr. Brandon D.
Ribic, America Makes; and Caroline Vail, NSWC Carderock.
Bruno Dorneles de Castro, Frederico de Castro Magalhães, and
Juan Carlos Campos Rubio, Graduate Program in Mechanical
Engineering, Gitem Laboratory, Federal University of Minas Gerais,
Av. Pres. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte 31270-901,
Brazil; and Túlio Hallak Panzera, Department of Mechanical and
Production Engineering, Centre for Innovation and Technology in
Composite Materials, Federal University of São João del Rei, Praça
Frei Orlando, 170, Centro, São João del Rei 36307352, Brazil. Contact
e-mails: bdc2016@ufmg.br, fredmag.castro@gmail.com,
panzera@ufsj.edu.br, and juan@ufmg.br.
ratio and multifunctional performance (Ref 3). Mousanezhad
et al. (Ref 4) investigated hierarchical honeycomb auxetic
metamaterials by experimental and numerical studies and
developed 2D metamaterials with negative PoissonÕs ratio,
with contractions in the transverse direction under uniaxial
compressive load, leading to improved energy absorption and
acoustic damping. On the other hand, Qi et al. (Ref 5) proposed
a reentrant circular honeycomb configuration and performed
experiments and numerical simulations to analyze the quasi-
static crushing response of these materials, finding greater
specific energy absorption than the regular reentrant honey-
comb configuration.
The development of new structures has been carried out
using additive manufacturing to replace subtractive manufac-
turing, providing high design flexibility, excellent production
capacity for components of complex geometries and low cost
(Ref 6). The fused deposition modeling method (FDM) is
widely used for polymeric materials. With the design of a solid
3D CAD model in STL format, a slicing process of the model
in layers is done and a G-code file is created and sent to the 3D
printer. The printing process is based on the manufacturing
parameters defined for the deposition of polymeric filaments.
Using the layer-by-layer effect until the formation of the final
structure, different units of core cell can be obtained (Fig. 1).
3D-printed materials have been extensively investigated in
recent years, offering promising applications as components in
industries such as construction and automotive (Ref 7-9).
The mechanical behavior of 3D-printed materials was
analyzed in the literature using experimental and numerical
investigations (Ref 10, 11). The responses under tensile,
flexural and low-velocity impact loads have shown the effects
of printing parameters on the mechanical properties of these
structures and their limitations. Lanzotti et al. (Ref 12) studied
the effect of layer thickness and infill orientation on the tensile
properties of 3D-printed specimens made of polylactic acid
(PLA); better results for the tensile modulus and strength were
obtained using lower infill orientation angles (more aligned to

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Fig. 1 Development and mechanical characterization of the panels: (a) CAD model in STL format, (b) 3D printer-software interface, with
model slicing and G-code file generation, (c) 3D printing using FDM method, (d) 3D-printed polymeric sandwich structures with cellular cores
and (e) mechanical tests

the test direction) and similar results using 0.10 mm and 0.20 Table 1 PLA physical and mechanical properties (12, 15,
mm layer thickness. Zaharia et al. (Ref 13) investigated the use 16)
of 3D-printed sandwich structures with honeycomb, diamond-
celled and corrugated core shapes subjected to compression, Property Nominal range
uniaxial tensile and flexural tests. Using polylactic acid/
polyhydroxyalkanoate (PLA/PHA) for 3D-printed specimens Density, g/cm3 1.24–1.26
and elastoplastic finite element analysis to predict the failure Melting point, C 150–175
Glass transition temperature, C 55–60
mode of the structures, they found a significant effect of the
Flexural modulus, GPa 2.39–4.93
core shape on the mechanical properties of the structure and Flexural strength, MPa 48–110
good similarity between experimental and numerical analysis. Tensile modulus, GPa 2.02–4.15
Gu et al. (Ref 14) presented a 3D-printed biomimetic conch Tensile strength, MPa 14–70
shell prototype to verify the influence of the hierarchy in the PoissonÕs ratio 0.33
conch shellÕs multiscale microarchitecture on impact resistance, Elongation at break, % 0.5–9.2
using drop weight tests and numerical simulations. They
noticed that the generation of pathways for crack deviation is
the main energy absorption mechanism, being suitable for
applications in helmets and armor, as suggested by the authors. printing speed of 50 mm/s and flat build orientation (layer
Traditionally, sandwich panels are made by conventional printing in x and y coordinates). Using the FDM method, PLA
manufacturing processes, in which the manufacture of core cell filaments of 1.75 mm in diameter are heated at 210 C and
geometry is limited. In addition, the 3D-printed panels lead to a extruded using a 0.4-mm-diameter nozzle. The printing bed is
fully integrated structure, which minimizes the issues related to preheated to 55 C. Table 1 shows the properties of PLA, a
the adhesiveness of the components. This work investigates the biodegradable thermoplastic polyester widely used in AM,
mechanical behavior of sandwich panels printed in 3D, made which can be obtained from renewable sources (Ref 15).
by the FDM method, designed with classic hexagonal cores The polymeric sandwich structures are printed with twenty-
(out-of-plane and in-plane oriented) and a novel type of core, two layers, including two layers for the top skin and two layers
namely S-shape corrugated cores. for the bottom skin, deposited with a Raster angle at 45/+45
with two shell perimeters per layer, to form the polymer skins,
which provide better response to the structure under bending
loads (Ref 1). The number of shell perimeters per layer
2. Experimental Investigation influences the mechanical properties of the 3D-printed material
(Ref 12), being kept constant for all conditions. The other
2.1 Sample Preparation layers are used to manufacture the cores, considering three cell
An experimental design is used to analyze the influence of geometries: hexagonal honeycomb oriented (i) out-of-plane, (ii)
the core shape on the mechanical properties of 3D-printed in-plane and S-shape corrugated, as shown in Fig. 2. The
polymeric sandwich structures. The materials are printed on a Solidworks 2018 and CuraEngine software are used to
BFB Rapman 3.1 3D printer, with a layer thickness of 0.2 mm,

5032—Volume 30(7) July 2021 Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance

Fig. 2 3D-printed sandwich structures: cellular dimensional configuration of the core structures (unit in mm): (a) out-of-plane hexagonal
honeycomb, (b) S-shape corrugated and (c) in-plane hexagonal honeycomb

design the 3D CAD models and slice the solid models,
respectively.
2.2 Mechanical Characterization of the 3D-Printed Materials
The 3D-printed polymeric sandwich structures are analyzed
by tensile (in-plane), three-point bending and Charpy impact
tests, to investigate the effect of the type of core geometry on
the mechanical properties of the structures. The tests are
performed using a 100 kN Shimadzu AG-X plus test machine
and an XJJ-50 Series machine (Charpy impact tests). The
tensile load direction of out-of-plane comb panels is aligned to
the W-direction of the cell, as shown in Fig. 3. Five specimens
and two replicates are considered for each test, totaling ninety
specimens. The average mass of the samples is quite similar for
the three conditions, being 7.59 ± 0.30 g for tensile samples,
5.46 ± 0.07 g for flexural samples and 3.04 ± 0.03 g for
Charpy impact samples, leading to equivalent densities of 1.07
± 0.07 g cm 3, 1.19 ± 0.12 g cm 3 and 1.23 ± 0.05 g/cm3,
respectively. The equivalent density is measured by the ratio
between mass and volume of the panels obtained via CAD.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to verify whether the
mean values of the mechanical properties are significantly
different among the three core shapes.
According to ASTM D638-14, tensile tests are performed
using Type I specimens, with a test speed of 5 mm/min and a
narrow section 57 mm long and 13 mm wide. A thin layer of
epoxy is added as the tab material. The tensile modulus,

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strength and elongation at break are determined. Three-point
bending tests are performed according to ASTM D790-15.
Bending specimens, with dimensions of 127 mm in length and
12.7 mm in width, are tested at 2 mm/min using a 72-mm
support span. Flexural modulus, strength and total displacement
are determined. Charpy impact tests are performed at a speed of
3.8 m/s following the protocols of ASTM D6110-10 and ISO
179-1, considering a sample dimension of 80 mm long and 10
mm wide. The absorbed energy is measured using a pendulum
impact with a normal stroke on 3D-printed layers (flatwise
normal impact).
3. Results and discussion
Table 2 shows the results of the analysis of variance
(ANOVA) for the mean values obtained from the tensile,
flexural and Charpy impact tests. A P-value less than or equal
to 0.05 indicates that the mean values are significantly different
for the mechanical property, considering the ‘‘core shape’’
factor. The adjusted R2 values show satisfactory adjustments of
the data to the statistical model. The assumptions of homo-
geneity of variances and normality of the residuals are checked
and validated. ANOVA shows that the mean values for
mechanical properties are significantly different within a 95%
confidence interval.
Fig. 3 Tensile stress–strain curves for the sandwich structures:
(HC_OUT_PL: Out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb core; S_SHAPE:
S-shape corrugated core; HC_IN_PL: In-plane hexagonal honeycomb
core)
Table 2 ANOVA for the mean mechanical properties
Tensile tests
Source variation ‘‘core shape’’ Tensile modulus Tensile strength
P-value £ 0.05 0.004 0.002
R2 (adj) 96.02% 97.68%
Anderson–Darling test (P-Value ‡ 0.05) 0.440 0.809
Bartlett test (P-value ‡ 0.05) 0.539 0.361
5034—Volume 30(7) July 2021
The tensile results of 3D sandwich structures are described
in Table 3. Higher tensile modulus and strength are obtained for
the panels made with hexagonal honeycomb cores oriented out-
of-plane and with S-shape corrugated cores. The anisotropic
behavior caused by deposition of filaments in the core structure
affects the tensile properties of the structures, because the
greater the number of core filaments aligned in the direction of
the load, the greater the stiffness and strength of the structure.
The elongation at break is similar for the three conditions.
Figure 3 shows the typical stress–strain curves for the 3D-
printed structures. In-plane oriented -comb core panels achieve
higher strain in the ribbon of the cell walls, generating stress
concentrations and lower values for tensile modulus and tensile
strength. The mechanical behavior of panels made with in-
plane -comb cores is defined by two stages, a linear behavior up
to about 0.01 strain, and a second one, characterized by a long
deformation at low stress levels. Moreover, this core shape has
a smaller number of filaments aligned to the load direction, in
contrast to S-shape corrugated cores, which have wider cell
units composed of a dense portion of bonded filaments aligned
to the load direction. Bodaghi et al. (Ref 3) also investigated the
mechanical properties of PLA panels with in-plane hexagonal
cells and found a strong effect of the cell shape and applied load
direction on the structureÕs strength, both under tensile and
compressive stresses.
Figure 4 shows the fracture surfaces of the specimens after
the tensile test. Inter-layer fracture (blue arrows in Fig. 4),
which occurs between two adjacent layers (the angle between
the failure and printing orientation are 0), and in-layer fracture
(red arrows in Fig. 4), when the layers break (the angle between
the failure and broken layer is different to 0) are reported,
which are the most common failure modes of 3D-printed
specimens (Ref 17). Additionally, the presence of voids
between the filaments is an intrinsic feature of the 3D-printed
structures and does not effectively contribute to the dissipation
of energy, which was also reported by Ayatollahi et al. (Ref 18),
which investigated tensile tests on PLA specimens under
different raster orientations. The increased load causes the
layers to break in different planes, followed by a brittle fracture
of the specimen. An adequate inter-layer bonding provides
greater stiffness and strength to the structure, which causes a
more concentrated damaged area. The specimens with inter-
layer fracture in the outer layers (panel polymeric facings)
present lower values for tensile modulus and strength, due to
less load transfer through the structure. According to Chacón
et al. (Ref 19), layers not aligned in the direction of tension
show flaws in adhesion to each other, resulting from the melting
process by the FDM method, which decrease the tensile
strength of the 3D-printed material.
Table 4 shows the mean flexural properties for sandwich
structures. The out-of-plane -comb core panel achieves the
Flexural tests Charpy impact tests
Flexural modulus Flexural strength Energy absorbed
0.004 0.006 0.002
95.66% 94.25% 97.19%
0.248 0.856 0.943
0.848 0.439 0.235
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Table 3 Tensile properties of the 3D-printed sandwich structures
Core shape Tensile modulus, GPa Tensile strength, MPa Elongation at break, %

Out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb 2.76 ± 0.24 43.23 ± 5.24 2.46 ± 0.33

S-shape corrugated 2.69 ± 0.23 47.38 ± 5.10 2.44 ± 0.34
In-plane hexagonal honeycomb 1.27 ± 0.10 16.06 ± 1.81 2.82 ± 0.35

Fig. 4 Failure mode of the 3D-printed sandwich structures after tensile tests

Table 4 Flexural properties of the 3D-printed sandwich structures

Core shape Flexural modulus, GPa Flexural strength, MPa Maximum displacement, mm

Out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb 2.23 ± 0.21 46.32 ± 5.46 8.07 ± 0.60

S-shape corrugated 1.90 ± 0.12 43.44 ± 1.82 8.29 ± 0.67
In-plane hexagonal honeycomb 1.73 ± 0.10 29.81 ± 1.97 7.82 ± 1.00

highest flexural modulus and strength. On the other hand, the
in-plane -comb core panel reaches the lowest values for flexural
properties, which is attributed to its strong anisotropic behavior
of the core shape. The maximum displacements of the
specimens under bending loading are quite similar for the
three core shapes. Typical bending force–displacement curves
are shown in Fig. 5.
The failure modes of the specimens under bending loads are
shown in Fig. 6. It is well known that bending loads provide in-
plane compressive stresses on the top skins (in-plane) and in the
central pin of the machine, tensile stresses in the bottom skin
and shear stresses in the neutral line (Ref 20). The presence of
plastic strain caused by the tensile stresses induced below the
neutral line, especially in the bottom skin, is observed by the
change in the color of the polymer, making it whiter (white
arrows in Fig. 6). The cracks are propagated vertically (cross-
section) from the bottom to the top skin. The occurrence of
cracks without total rupture of the structure is obtained for all
conditions. In-layer (red arrows in Fig. 6) and inter-layer (blue
arrows in Fig. 6) fractures are found in the specimens. The S-
shape corrugated core panels present delamination, similar to
that found in the study by Somireddy and Czekanski (Ref 21),
especially attributed to tensile stresses in the bottom skin. In
contrast, in-plane -comb core panels, which have a higher
density of connections between the filaments, tend to propagate
cracks in the direction of the applied load (the transverse
direction of the specimen), leading to lower maximum failure
loads. In general, out-of-plane -comb core and S-shape

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corrugated core panels have a greater damage area, which
contributes to energy absorption, observed by the presence of
cracks along the longitudinal direction of these specimens.
The energy absorbed during the Charpy impact tests is
shown in Fig. 7. Greater energy absorption is obtained by the
out-of-plane -comb core panels (0.58 ± 0.05 J) and S-shape
core panels (0.54 ± 0.03 J), followed by in-plane -comb core
panels (0.44 ± 0.05 J). The results evidence a better transfer of
energy through the longitudinal filament network, especially for
out-of-plane -comb panels, which was previously found for the
tensile and flexural properties. In low-velocity impact tests,
Fig. 5 Bending force–displacement curves for the sandwich
structures: (HC_OUT_PL: Out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb core;
S_SHAPE: S-shape corrugated core; HC_IN_PL: In-plane hexagonal
honeycomb core)
Fig. 6 Failure mode of the 3D-printed sandwich structures after three-point bending tests
5036—Volume 30(7) July 2021
compressive stresses are applied to the top surface of the
material and tend to cause a global deflection of the structure,
generating shear stresses, leading to the rupture of the polymer
panel by in-layer fractures, as reported by Turner et al. (Ref 22).
A brittle fracture of the layers can be noticed (red arrows in
Fig. 8), with transverse cracks along the direction of the
pendulum. According to Desu et al. (Ref 23), there is a
transition state between elastic flexural and rupture (induced
between flexural and transverse shear) in the dynamic impact
response of 3D-printed PLA plates. When the flexural stiffness
exceeds a specific threshold value, energy dissipation is
dominated by fracture energy and low energy dissipation is
provided by elastic deflection. The sandwich structures made
with in-plane hexagonal honeycomb core show less energy
Fig. 7 Energy absorbed of the 3D-printed sandwich structures:
(HC_OUT_PL: Out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb core; S_SHAPE:
S-shape corrugated core; HC_IN_PL: In-plane hexagonal honeycomb
core)
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
Fig. 8 Failure mode of the 3D-printed sandwich structures after impact tests
absorption due to the less energy dissipation capacity along its
longitudinal direction. Besides, the damaged area of the
specimen has a strong relationship with the values obtained
for the energy absorbed in impact tests, due to the inertial
effects.
The results of the Charpy impact tests show that there is a
significant effect of the core shape on energy absorption, as
shown in ANOVA (Table 2). However, for better energy
absorption of these structures under low-velocity impact tests, it
is recommended to use external skins with greater stiffness
along with films and adhesives that provide a better distribution
of loads between the 3D-printed cores and the skins (Ref 22,
24). This can lead to higher sandwich structures that can offer
greater energy absorption capacity, greater buckling resistance
under static and dynamic loads. At the same time, it makes the
structures lighter, with low relative density and a good stiffness-
to-weight ratio (Ref 25).
4. Conclusions
This study investigated the mechanical behavior of 3D-
printed polymeric sandwich panels under tensile, flexural and
Charpy impact loadings. It was concluded that the use of
additive manufacturing is a promising and efficient way to
create polymeric structures with different core shapes, offering
a valid alternative to replace traditional manufacturing pro-
cesses in the manufacture of complex cell geometries.
The 3D-printed sandwich panels showed an anisotropic
behavior, with better energy absorption when using the aligned
filament networks and less discontinuities in the deposited
filaments. In addition, the out-of-plane -comb and S-shape
corrugated panels achieved excellent mechanical behavior
when compared to the panels made with in-plane hexagonal
honeycomb core. In-layer and inter-layer fractures were the
main failure modes of 3D-printed polymeric sandwich struc-
tures.
The tensile modulus of structures made with an out-of-plane
-comb core and S-shape corrugated core had similar mechanical
behaviors (2.76 and 2.69 GPa, respectively). The out-of-plane -
comb core panels led to a 117% greater tensile modulus than
panels with in-plane -comb core. In addition, the tensile
strength of S-shape corrugated core panels was 195% higher
than panels made with an in-plane -comb core (47.38 and 16.06
MPa, respectively).
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance
The out-of-plane -comb core panels achieved a higher
flexural modulus (29%) and flexural strength (55%) compared
to in-plane -comb core. Panels made with an S-shape corru-
gated core reached a lower flexural modulus (15%) than those
with an out-of-plane hexagonal honeycomb core, although the
results for flexural strength were similar.
The impact energy absorbed by the sandwich structures was
similar for the out-of-plane -comb and S-shape corrugated core
panels, in addition to having higher mean values (32 and 23%,
respectively) when compared to the in-plane -comb core panels.
The core structures fabricated by additive manufacturing
showed good mechanical behavior, enabling their application in
secondary structural sandwich panels.
Acknowledgments
This study was partially funded by CAPES (Brazil) - Finance
Code 001. The authors would like to thank the Brazilian Research
Agencies, CNPq and FAPEMIG, and the Centre for Innovation and
Technology in Composites (CITeC) from the Federal University of
São João del-Rei (UFSJ) and the Graduate Program in Mechanical
Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG),
for the infrastructure and the support provided.
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