J. Inst. Eng. India Ser.
C
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40032-022-00895-9
CASE STUDY
Influence of Nano‑Clay and Strain Rate on the In‑Plane
Compression Response of Nano‑Clay/AA3003 Honeycomb
Sandwich Panels
P. V. Prasanth1 · M. Edwin Sahaya Raj2 · R. S. Jayaram3 · S. Senthil Murugan4
Received: 3 June 2022 / Accepted: 4 October 2022
© The Institution of Engineers (India) 2022
Abstract  Sandwich panels (SPs) are promising materi-
als for aerospace, transportation, naval, and civil construc-
tion applications because of their excellent acoustic damp-
ening qualities, high specific strength, and stiffness. As
far as sandwich panel failure is concerned, face and core
debonding in the SPs are the worst of the lot. Hybrid com-
posites with glass-fibre face sheets and aluminium honey-
comb sandwich structures were studied in this work for their
interfacial bonding and compressive strength. SPs’s in-plane
compression properties were also studied in relation to the
strain rates. Further investigation was conducted about the
possibility and the effect of integrating nano-clay into glass-
fibre face sheets (FSs) and aluminium honeycomb cores.
As a result, the honeycomb core fillet, resin and nano-clay
at the interface form a composite. To improve the in- and
out-plane properties, the authors added the nano-clay to the
FS. The in-plane failure load of sandwich panels was greatly
influenced by increasing nano-clay concentration, but the
loading rate had no impact.
Keywords  Strain rate · Honeycomb · AA3003 ·
Composite · Sandwich panels
* P. V. Prasanth
findprasanth@gmail.com
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Noorul Islam Centre
for Higher Education, Kumarakoil, Tamilnadu 629180, India
2
Department of Automobile Engineering, Noorul Islam Centre
for Higher Education, Kumarakoil, Tamilnadu 629180, India
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita
College of Engineering and Technology, Erachakulam,
Tamilnadu 629901, India
4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajalakshmi
Engineering College, Chennai, Tamilnadu 602105, India
 
Introduction
Sandwich panels are known for their low specific gravity,
excellent bending strength, and stiffness. Such panels are
employed in a variety of areas like aeronautical, automo-
bile, and marine transportation. The core of such panels is
usually constructed of low-density materials (aluminium
or Nomex honeycomb, metal, or polymer foam) [1–3].
Some of the factors which affect the mechanical qualities
of sandwich panels are the top and bottom face sheets, the
centre core, adhesives used to join them together, and even
their geometrical dimensions [4]. The face sheets provide
the panel bending strength and stiffness, and their primary
role is to transmit shear forces between them. The sandwich
structure’s response and failure under varied load circum-
stances are controlled by the core material [5]. The core is
usually made of foam or balsa wood, or it is constructed
using corrugated, truss, or honeycomb structures. The face
sheet is supported in one direction by the corrugated core,
while the honeycomb core offers two-way support [6]. Alu-
minium, plastics, and composite materials like Nomex are
the most often utilised honeycomb manufacturing materials
[7]. Numerous investigations on the mechanical behaviour
of sandwich panels made of various face sheets and core
materials have been conducted [8, 9].Wei et al. developed
three-dimensional failure mechanism maps by examining the
in-plane compressive characteristics of sandwich panels and
optimised their load-weight efficiency [10]. Load dispersion,
face-core adhesion, and material characteristics all have a
role in the application of stresses and subsequent damage
types [11]. Honeycomb sandwich topologies, according to
[12], exhibit various mechanical properties depending on the
size, density, material, and thickness of the cells [13–15]. A
three-point bending test was used to analyse failure mecha-
nisms such as core shear and crushing and face wrinkling
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and debonding in composite sandwich panels using natural
and synthetic fibre reinforcements. Zhou et al. [14] con-
sidered the skin thickness and core density of honeycomb
sandwiches to learn more about their mechanical charac-
teristics and failure mechanisms under bending loads. The
researchers found that interfacial debonding are a common
source of damage starting in sandwich structures and that
this decreases the stiffness and strength of the structure sig-
nificantly. “The risk of delamination between the composite
face sheets and honeycomb core due to local surface contact,
low energy impact, or unintentional high load has a substan-
tial influence on the long-term performance of honeycomb
core sandwich systems”. Z-pinning, stitching, and embed-
ding are some of the interfacial toughening procedures that
have been proposed [15, 16] to link the core to the face sheet.
There are still issues with bonding strength and interfacial
toughness despite the advances made by the technologies
listed above. As a result of Z-pinning and sewing during
the recurrent stitching process, sandwich structures may
lose structural integrity [17]. The mechanical, thermal, and
flame retardant characteristics of polymer composites are all
improved when nano-clay is added. As a result of the high
surface-to-volume ratios of nano-clays in polymers, they are
dispersed at a nanoscale size scale. Using both experimental
and computational methods, Shahverdi et al. [18] investi-
gated the post-clasping characterisation of actually great/
flawed honeycomb centre sandwich panels with graphene
platelet built-up face sheets. Graphene platelet dispersion
in the facings was expected to improve the post-clasping
problem. There has also been no investigation towards alu-
minium honeycomb–glass-fibre sandwich composites with
nano-clay grids in-plane. Sandwich panels made of alu-
minium honeycomb and glass-fibre are constructed using
a polyester grid containing nano-clay. It is explored how
in-plane compression and the strain rate of polyester resin
containing nano-clay affect sandwich laminates.
Materials and Methods
A composite panel is fabricated with two layers of fibre-
glass-woven fabric with an areal density of 600 g/m2 and
nano-clay/polyester resin face sheets. Methylene ethyl
ketone peroxide (MEK) was employed as a catalyst, while
cobalt naphthenate was utilised as an accelerator. AA3003
aluminium alloy of height 10 mm is used as the core mate-
rial. Owing to its excellent strength, ductility, and corro-
sion resistance, AA3003 is utilised. The AA3003 proper-
ties such as density, young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and
yield strength are 2680 kg/m3, 69 GPa, 0.3, and 116 MPa,
respectively.
In this investigation, Cloisite Na + nano-clay was used.
Using layup methods, sandwich laminates are hand-made. It
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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C
is possible to maintain polyester resin nano-clay concentra-
tions as low as 0, 2, and 4% weight. When the top face sheet
was attached to the core using two layers of glass-woven
fabric, a honeycomb core, and polyester resin, the bottom
face sheet was generated [19]. It took 24 h for the sand-
wich composites to harden once the lamination technique
was completed. A glass–fibre/polyester matrix facing sheet
was used to construct the sandwich specimen SP. Specimens
(sandwich panel with nano-clay) like SPN2 and SPN4 were
made by adding the nano-clay of 2 and 4 wt.%, respectively,
on the polyester resin in face sheet materials.
Results and Discussion
Influence of Nano-clay in In-plane Compression Properties
of Sandwich Panels: Under in-plane compressive load, face
sheets carry the majority of the load, while the core serves
to stabilise and prevent face sheets from the buckling. Fig-
ure 1(a) shows the load–deflection curve from an in-plane
compression test. All of the panels’ load–deflection curves
are linear until they reach a failure load, at which point they
begin to drop owing to failure. The nano-clay included
panels, i.e. the SPN2 and SPN4 panels, have a higher fail-
ure load than the SP without nano-clay. It is the addition
of nano-clay to the resin fillet in the sandwich panel that
gives it a higher failure load capacity than SP [12].With
and without nano-clay, the failure modes of sandwich panels
are different. Panels containing nano-clay failed owing to
global buckling, a phenomenon characterised by bending
and compression damage caused by face core that did not
debond. The interfacial strength of SPN2 and SPN4 pan-
els was improved by nano-clay. The SP had a load-bearing
capacity of 5,172 N, whereas NSP2 and NSP4 possessed
capabilities of 8,764 N and 9461 N, respectively.
Influence of Strain Rate in In-plane Compression Proper-
ties of Sandwich Panels: There were three strain rates used
in the in-plane compression test: one millimetre per minute,
ten millimetres per minute, and one hundred millimetres per
minute. Compression testing of SP panels yielded the curve
shown in Fig. 1(b) for in-plane load versus deflection. It is
known that the compressive behaviour of SP panels is influ-
enced by the strain rate. When the strain rate is increased
from 1 mm/min to 10 mm/min and 100 mm/min, in-plane
compressive strength increases by 8.04% and 18.4% respec-
tively. Research on foam-filled sandwich panels also came
to the same conclusion [20]. High loading rates occur over
a short period, which tends to favour the elastic properties
of materials. Elasticity is related to load-bearing capacity
and is represented by attributes like strength and stiffness.
Figure 1(c) and (d) shows that strain rate has an impact on
the SPN2 and SPN4 panels, respectively. For SPN panels,
a higher strain rate has a stronger favourable impact on
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C
Fig.  1  a-d: a In-plane compression load–deflection curves of SP,
SPN2 and SPN4 sandwich panels, b in-plane compression load–
deflection curves of SP sandwich panels, c in-plane compression
in-plane compressive characteristics than for SP panels, as
can be shown in Table 1. From one to ten millimetres per
second, the SPN2 board’s in-plane compressive strength
increased by 5.6% and 11.3%, respectively, after increasing
the strain rate. Strength in-plane for the SPN4 panel was
increased by 4.6% and 10.12%, respectively.
Conclusions
The compressive properties of SP and SPN panels
were found to be greatly improved by adding nano-clay
to glass–fibre face sheets and aluminium honeycomb
load–deflection curves of SPN2 sandwich panels, d in-plane com-
pression load–deflection curves of SPN4 sandwich panels
sandwich laminates. The SPN4 panel’s in-plane compres-
sive characteristics were improved by raising the nano-
clay concentration from 2 to 4 weight percentage. The
impact of strain rates on the in-plane properties of SP and
SPN sandwich panels was investigated, and the results
revealed that the strain rate had a minor impact on the in-
plane properties. The flexural properties of SPN4 panels
increased as the strain rate was raised more than SPN2
and SP panels. As a result, SPN panels with nano-clay are
superior to SP panels for constructing composite structural
components.
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 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C

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