The main advantages of sandwiches as structural components are now well- known and well-established. Due to the progress in polymer science and engineering and advances in manufacturing processes, sandwich structures can blend various functional and structural properties and therefore lead to highly innovating systems. The current difficulty to overcome is to provide designers with proper methodologies and tools that could enable them to design improved sandwich structures. Such dedicated design tools should be efficient, reliable, flexible and user-friendly. They should be based on advanced...

The main advantages of sandwiches as structural components are now well known and well-established. Due to the progress in polymer science and engineering and advances in manufacturing processes, sandwich structures can blend various functional and structural properties and therefore lead to highly innovating systems. The current difficulty to overcome is to provide designers with proper methodologies and tools that could enable them to design improved sandwich structures. Such dedicated design tools should be efficient, reliable, flexible and user-friendly. They should be based on advanced...