Design and homogenization of metal sandwich tubes with prismatic cores

Hollow cylindrical tubes with a prismatic sandwich lining designed to replace the solid cross-sections are studied in this paper. The sections are divided by a number of revolving periodic unit cells and three topologies of unit cells (Square, Triangle and Kagome) are proposed. Some types of multiple-topology designed materials are also studied. The feasibility and accuracy of a homogenization method for obtaining the equivalent parameters are investigated. As the curved elements of a unit cell are represented by straight elements in the method and the ratios of the lengths of the curved elements to the lengths of the straight elements vary with the changing number of unit cells, some errors may be introduced. The frequencies of the first five modes and responses of the complete and equivalent models under an internal static pressure and an internal step pressure are compared for investigating the scope of applications of the method. The lower bounds and upper bounds of the number of Square, Triangular and Kagome cells in the sections are obtained. It is shown that treating the multiple-topology designed materials as a separate-layer structure is more accurate than treating the structure as a whole.