Fabrication, Testing and Analysis of Composite Lattice Panels Under Three-Point Bending Load

Thanks to their high strength-to-weight ratio, lightweightness, and excellent energy absorption, composite lattice panels can be used in the aerospace, marine, automotive, and other industries. These structures can be used as an alternative to string-reinforced structures, honeycomb (core) sandwich panels, and aluminum grid structures. In this paper, a composite lattice panel is first fabricated from glass/epoxy by hand lay-up method using a silicon rubber mold. In this method, a Kagome composite lattice panel with twelve layers of resin-impregnated fibers was fabricated during a continuous process. After fabrication, the test panel was shown under three-point bending and failure modes. Also, a numerical simulation of three-point bending was performed in ABAQUS software. Then, the simulation results were compared with those of the experimental test, indicating a good convergence between the experimental test results and the finite element ones up to the point of failure. Due to changes in directions of force, these structures have a high ability to withstand damage, and therefore, continue to withstand the load after the failure of one or more ribs. Also, there is no sudden and sharp drop in the load-bearing capacity of the structure despite the force being maximized, which can be attributed to the high energy absorption of such structures. Instead, the force decreases slowly with fluctuations, and the structure continues to absorb energy until final failure. Therefore, such lightweight structures can be used in applications where energy absorption is of great importance.