Material combinations and parametric study of thermal and mechanical performance of pyramidal core sandwich panels used for hypersonic aircrafts

A novel kind of lightweight integrated thermal protection system, named pyramidal core sandwich panel, is proposed to be a good safeguard for hypersonic aircrafts in the current study. Such system is considered as not only an insulation structure but also a load-bearing structure. In the context of design for hypersonic aircrafts, an efficient optimization should be paid enough attention. This paper concerns with the homogenization of the proposed pyramidal sandwich core panel using two-dimensional model in subsequent research for material selection. According to the required insulation performance and thermal–mechanical properties, several suitable material combinations are chosen as candidates for the pyramidal core sandwich panel by adopting finite element analysis and approximate response surface. To obtain lightweight structure with an excellent capability of heat insulation and load-bearing, an investigation on some specific design variables, which are significant for thermal–mechanical properties of the structure, is performed. Finally, a good balance between the insulation performance, the capability of load-bearing and the lightweight has attained.