Novel OpencellT metal sandwich panel concept: design, manufacture and properties

All-metal sandwich panels offer numerous outstanding properties allowing the designer to develop light and efficient structural configurations for a large variety of applications. The most established type of all-metal sandwich panels is using directional stiffeners between solid surface sheets. Characteristic of these panels is, however, the heterogeneity of strength and/or stiffness properties in longitudinal and transverse directions. Sandwich panel technology development towards lattice truss concepts has resulted in a completely new metal panel idea called OpencellT. Instead of a conventional three constituent panel structure (sheet/core/sheet), a combination of cut-and-formed core and single solid sheet element is used, resulting in higher degree of design variables for tailored properties. Other key benefits of the OpencellT technology are reduction of the number of structural elements, and hence manufacturing phases and eventually weight. This paper describes the design and optimisation of prototype OpencellT panels, their manufacture, and test results from static and fatigue bending type tests.