Design, development and numerical analysis of honeycomb core with variable crushing strength

A honeycomb core with half-circular cut-away sections at the spine (the adjoining cell walls) is designed and developed and numerically tested under axial dynamic load condition. The parametric study is invoked to identify the effect of various circular cut-away dimensions. In one embodiment a half-circular shaped cuts are removed from the top of the cell where the cell is impacted and its radius decreases toward the trailing edge of the cell. Numerical (FE) analysis was performed using explicit ANSYS/LS-DYNA and LS-DYNA codes to investigate the crushing performance, where impact angles 30° and 90° was combined with velocity of 5:3 m/sec. The crushing strength and internal energy absorption of the modified honeycomb cores with cut-away sections are then monitored to define the design parameters. The representative Y-section (axisymmetric model) is used for numerical analysis which simulates the honeycomb crushing performance. The numerical results of these innovative models show cyclic buckling effect in which crushing strength increases linearly as the rigid wall passes through. The FE results are validated with corresponding published experiments of the original unmodified honeycomb core (without cut-away).