Sandwich structured composite

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Diagram of an assembled composite sandwich (A), and its constituent face sheets or skins (B) and honeycomb core (C) (alternately: foam core)

A Sandwich structured composite is a special class of composite materials that is fabricated by attaching two thin but stiff skins to a lightweight but thick core. The core material is normally low strength material, but its higher thickness provides the sandwich composite with high bending stiffness with overall low density.

Open and closed cell structured foam, balsa wood and syntactic foam, and composite honeycomb are commonly used core materials. Glass or carbon fiber reinforced laminates are widely used as skin materials. Sheet metal is also used as skin materials in some cases.