Manufacturing And Axial Compression Testing Of Composite Cylinders With Pyramidal Lattice Cores

Cylinder structure has widespread applications in the aerospace field. Due to the advantages of lightweight, high strength, high modulus and designability, composite lattice cylinder structure has been concerned widely. In this thesis, composite cylinder structure with pyramidal lattice truss core was investigated both experimentally and numerically, including design, fabricating method and the performance of axial compression.First, the common fabricating methods of flat and cylindrical sandwich structures with lattice truss cores were reviewed, and the researches on the mechanical properties were summarized specially. Then, a hot pressing mold, which can be used to fabricate composite pyramidal lattice cylinder quickly and conveniently, was designed based on the previous studies. The basic mechanical performances of glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite laminated plates were test, and then, the critical load of pyramidal lattice cylinder made of glass fiber and carbon fiber reinforced composite materials under axial compression were measured respectively. Finite element method was used to study the buckling problem of pyramidal lattice cylinder made of glass fabric under compression, and the effects of the face sheet thickness, core thickness, and core angles were discussed. Finally, a concise summary of the work and results was achieved.The most important innovations of the present thesis include the following points:a hot pressing process, which can manufacture composite pyramidal lattice cylinder quickly and excellently, was developed. From experimental studies, we found that owing to the characteristics of high strength and lightweight of composite materials, composite pyramidal lattice cylinder has a good prospect in application in the aerospace field, which has an increasing demand for lightweight structures.