Sandwich-like structures can significantly reduce the self-weight and size of load-bearing elements. However determining the flexural response of multi-layered sandwich structures is not a trivial task, particularly their buckling response. This study consists of novel theoretical work for extending Allen’s and Southwell’s buckling theories in order to develop a comprehensive model for the buckling response of multi-layered composite sandwich struts. The new model is applied here to predict the buckling of composite glazing, made of glass face-sheets separated by and adhesively-bonded to inner core profiles, thereby reducing the weight and thickness of conventional glazing panels. Existing physical test data on composite glazing is currently limited to flexural responses under out-of-plane loading and no published data exists for in-plane loading. Therefore three composite glazing struts were fabricated and tested in axial compression in this study, and the test data is used to validate the new model. As expected, failure of the composite glazing struts originated at regions of high shear stress close to end supports. It was found that the critical buckling loads predicted by the new analytical model are within 4% of those obtained from Southwell plots of the experimental data. Similarly, the new model provides a very good fit to the load–deflection and the load-stress responses from the experiments. This is a significant improvement on traditional Euler-based layered or monolithic models that, for this particular application, produce an underestimation of 90% and an overestimation of 40% of the critical buckling loads, respectively, and would therefore result in uneconomic or unsafe designs, respectively.

类似于三明治的结构可以显着减小承重元件的自重和尺寸。然而，确定多层夹层结构的挠曲响应并不是一件容易的事，特别是它们的屈曲响应。这项研究包括扩展Allen和Southwell的屈曲理论的新颖理论工作，以便为多层复合夹芯支撑的屈曲响应建立一个综合模型。在此应用新模型来预测复合玻璃窗的屈曲，该复合窗玻璃由被内芯型材隔开并粘结在一起的玻璃面板制成，从而减轻了常规玻璃板的重量和厚度。目前，有关复合玻璃的物理测试数据仅限于平面外载荷下的挠曲响应，并且不存在公开的平面内载荷数据。因此，在本研究中，制造了三个复合玻璃支撑杆并在轴向压缩下进行了测试，并使用测试数据来验证新模型。如预期的那样，复合玻璃支撑杆的破坏源自靠近端部支撑件的高剪切应力区域。发现新分析模型预测的临界屈曲载荷在实验数据的Southwell图获得的屈曲载荷的4％以内。同样，新模型非常适合实验中的载荷-挠度和载荷-应力响应。这是对基于欧拉的传统分层或整体模型的重大改进，对于该特定应用，该模型分别低估了关键屈曲载荷的90％和过高估计40％的临界屈曲载荷，