Due to thin skins and soft core, it is apt to local indentation inducing the concurrence of geometrical and material nonlinearity in sandwich structures. In the paper, finite element simulation is used to investigate the bending behavior of lightweight sandwich beams under large deflection. A modified formulation for the moment at mid-span section of sandwich beams under large deflection is presented, and energy absorption performance is assessed based on energy absorption efficiency. In addition, it is found that no local indentation arises initially, while later that increases gradually with loading displacement increasing. The height of the mid-span section as well as load-carrying capacity decreases significantly with local indentation depth increasing.