A simplified analytical method was developed in this paper to determine the dynamic response of clamped sandwich beam with aluminum foam core under impulsive load. The analytical method and FEM were applied to study the dynamic response of sandwich beam with aluminum foam core under impulsive load. The results of analytical method and FEM were compared with results in test. The effect of the face material and the core thickness were studied mainly in this paper. The results of analytical method is good agree with the results of test. The results of analytical method is at most only 14% over the results of the test. The deflection of the sandwich beam with HRB335 steel face sheet and aluminum foam core is smaller than the deflection of sandwich beam with 304# stainless steel face sheet and aluminum foam core. The more thick core thickness of sandwich beam, the smaller deflection of sandwich beam under the same impulsive load. The thickness of sandwich beam increased from 10mm to 20mm, the deflection of sandwich beam deduced about 33%.