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To meet the demand of lightweight truss, thin-walled single-/double-/four-cell carbon fiber reinforced polymethacrylimide foam sandwich composite beams were manufactured by tubular braiding. Transverse impact damage and axial compression failure of the braided sandwich beams were investigated by finite element modeling, micro-CT detection, acoustic emission and infrared imaging characterization. It is found that impact damage concentrated at edges of the indentation region, internal CFRP walls and surrounding foams. Different from the continuous vertical wall in double-cell beam, cracks on the internal vertical wall of four-cell beam were suppressed at half height due to the discontinuous horizontal wall. During the axial compression, six failure modes were observed for non-impacted(0J) and impacted(40J, 60J, 80J) specimens, which were determined by the combined effect of impacted damages and inner configurations. And the inner configurations have an advantage over the transverse impact effect on the axial failure mechanism. Unlike the single-cell beams, the double- and four-cell counterparts did not present buckling or bending failures owing to the effective support from internal CFRP walls, however, more significant fracture was found at their outer CFRP layers due to the progressive mechanism of shear, tearing, splaying, and separation. • Integral braiding and net forming of sandwich beams with complex cross sections. • Mutual verification by micro-CT, FE analysis, and morphology characterization. • Real-time failure analysis by joint application of AE and IR method. • Effect of pre-impact and inner configurations on CAI properties of sandwich beams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]