## 4 Results and Discussion
It is seen that the distribution of the shear stress is parabolic and independent on the loadings when \(L_{P}/L\leq 0.2\). Figure 13 shows the iso-stress (\(\sigma_{xx}/q\)) diagrams for sandwich panels under different distributed loads. Since the diagram for the locally distributed load (\(L_{p}/L=0.1\)) is already shown in Figure 5 and the diagram for point load is exactly the same as the one for locally distributed load (\(L_{p}/L=0.001\)), they are not included in Figure 13. The loading effect on the axial stress distributions, especially in the middle area, can be clearly seen. Higher stress appears in the loading area for smaller \(L_{p}/L\). With extremely small \(L_{p}/L\), the maximum value located at the lower part of the core, although the  
Figure 4:0 Through-thickness distribution of the shear stress (\(\tau_{xz}/q\)) for sandwich panels under different loadings (\(x=-0.0464L\)). Figure 4:1 Through-thickness distribution of the shear stress (\(\tau_{xz}/q\)) for sandwich panels under different loadings (\(x=-0.4726L\)). Figure 4:2 Comparison of shear stress (\(\tau_{xz}/q\)) of sandwich panels at \(x=-0.0464L\). upper part is closer to the loading area. For the region away from the loading area (\(-0.5L\leq x\leq-0.3L\) and \(0.3L\leq x\leq 0.5L\)), the stress distribution remains similar although \(L_{p}/L\) is quite different. The iso-stress (\(\sigma_{zz}/q\)) diagrams for sandwich panels under different distributed loads are shown in Figure 4:3 Since the diagram for the locally distributed load (\(L_{p}/L=0.1\)) is already shown in Figure 6 and the diagram for point load is exactly the same as the one for locally distributed load (\(L_{p}/L=0.001\)), they are not included in Figure 4:4 The loading effect on the transverse normal stress distributions, especially in the middle area, can be clearly seen. Higher stress appears in the loading area for smaller \(L_{p}/L\). When the load is applied at a wider range, i.e., \(L_{p}/L>0.5\), the highest transverse normal stress is observed at the clamped end. Different from the axial stress distribution, the highest magnitude of transverse normal stress changes significant when the size of loading area is changed. In Figure 13a-e, the highest value of \(\sigma_{xx}/q\) remains in the same level with different \(L_{p}/L\) cases, while the highest value of \(\sigma_{zz}/q\) shown in Figure 14a-e may be increased by several times with smaller \(L_{p}/L\). Figure 4:5 Iso-stress (\(\sigma_{xx}/q\)) diagrams for sandwich panels under various locally distributed loads: (a) \(L_{p}=L\); (b) \(L_{p}=0.5L\); (c) \(L_{p}=0.2L\); (d) \(L_{p}=0.01L\); and (e) \(L_{p}=0.001\). Figure 15 shows the iso-stress (\(\tau_{xz}/q\)) diagrams for sandwich panels under different distributed loads. For the same reason, the diagram for the locally distributed load (\(L_{p}/L\) = 0.1) and the diagram for point load are not included in Figure 4:6 The loading effect on the transverse shear stress distributions, especially in the middle area, can be clearly seen. It should be pointed out that the through-thickness distribution is actually non-linear, as clearly shown in Figures 11 and 12. Similar to the axial normal stress, the size of loading area, \(L_{p}/L\), does not affect the maximum value of the normalized shear stress too much. Figure 4:7 Iso-stress (\(\sigma_{zz}/q\)) diagrams for sandwich panels under various locally distributed loads: (**a**) \(L_{p}\) = \(L\); (**b**) \(L_{p}\) = 0.5\(L\); (**c**) \(L_{p}\) = 0.2\(L\); (**d**) \(L_{p}\) = 0.01\(L\); and (**e**) \(L_{p}\) = 0.001. Figure 4:8 _Cont._