Crushing properties of hexagonal adhesively bonded honeycombs loaded in their tubular direction

Aluminum hexagonal honeycombs loaded in their tubular direction have extremely good mechanical properties, including high stiffness to weight and energy absorption capacities. The corresponding load-displacement curve exhibits a long plateau accompanied by small fluctuations. These fluctuations are due to the propagation of a folding front through the studied sample, which is due to the creation of folds. This plateau load makes honeycombs the perfect candidates for use as energy-dissipative devices such as bumpers. Previous studies have largely focused on the study of the plateau load with less attention given to the length of the folds. However, it will be seen that this parameter is crucial for both the complete understanding of the mechanics of the folding and the derivation of the plateau load. We present first an introduction to the thematic of honeycomb. Then, the first model focuses precisely on the fold length. Two hypotheses are considered, a correlation between elastic buckling and folding first and a local propagation of the existing fold secondly. The second hypothesis is found to be correct, and the results are good for thin foils. For thick foils, a geometric limitation occurs, which makes the results less precise. Then, we are able to use the previous kinematics for the folding and derive a new set of formulas for the plateau load. The results are compared with experimental results and past formulas, and are found to be good, especially for thin foils, where our results for the fold length are more precise.M.S.Committee Chair: Mulalo Doyoyo; Committee Co-Chair: Reginald Desroches; Committee Member: Laurence J Jacob