Numerical assessment of disorder effects in metal foam core sandwich beams based on a local homogenization procedure

The present study is concerned with a numerical procedure for prediction of uncertainty effects in sandwich structures with disordered cores. The approach is based on probability distributions of different material properties and their spatial correlation which are the results of the multiple homogenization analysis of testing volume elements. In order to illustrate the essential difference in the results of material uncertainties between computations using random fields and a deterministic approach both methods are applied to a single edge clamped sandwich beam with a metal foam core which is loaded by a force at the free end.