Honeycomb Panel Buckling: An Exercise in Flight Vehicle Structures Course

In all undergraduate aerospace programs, there is at least one course devoted to flight vehicle structures. In such a course, honeycomb structure is discussed because of the high strength to weight ratio it offers. Besides teaching the theoretical background on simple bending and buckling of honeycomb structures, a simple experiment in buckling of sandwich panels is introduced to provide hands on experience to students who work in groups of 3 or 4. Furthermore, a computational analysis of the ​sandwich panel is also investigated. The analytical, experimental, and computational results are compared with each other. This exercise not only helps students to understand and appreciate how theoretical, computational, and experimental results compare but also an appreciation for statistical analysis of small samples ​of experimental data obtained by student groups. In this paper, a brief description of the project is presented, a detailed theoretical analysis procedure to compute buckling loads using both elastic equation (Euler's formula) as well as inelastic equation and a simple buckling experiment using an aluminum alloy sandwich (honeycomb) test specimen is also described. The paper provides results to determine the buckling load along with comparison to associated theoretical and computational analysis predictions. ​ ​An assessment of the student feedback is also presented.