Abstract
In the last decade, sandwich structures spread a great interest in civil engineering applications. However, despite their excellent mechanical performance, they can be affected by macroscopic and microscopic damages, which may trigger catastrophic failure modes. Detailed understanding of the physical and mechanical properties is needed in order to allow refined numerical models to describe structural behaviour under intensive loading conditions, accurately. The elastic and fracture characterisation of the core material is particularly relevant because cracking phenomenon strongly reduces the capacity of the sandwich structures to carry out loads. PVC foams, typically used as the inner core in a structural application, are investigated over a range of foam densities. PVC foams H100, H130, and H200, produced by DIAB. The elastic properties of foams under compressive uni-axial loading are measured using the full-field methodology.