Using Experimentally Determined Resonant Behaviour to Estimate the Design Parameter Variability of Thermoplastic Honeycomb Sandwich Structures

Honeycomb panels combine a high specific strength and stiffness with a low areal mass. Consequently, these structures are ideally suited for ground transportation vehicle purposes. They have a complex but regular geometry. This paper describes the full process of estimating the variability of some of the panel design parameters of thermoplastic honeycomb structures. The uncertainty of the various stiffness parameters of the core and skin is estimated from the experimentally determined modal behaviour of a set of honeycomb beam and panel samples. This work thus deals with uncertainty quantification by considering an inverse problem. Variability analysis are carried out at different scales in order to obtain a full scope of the impact and origin (from the manufacturing process) of honeycomb design parameter variability.status: publishe