Crushing behavior and deformation mechanism of randomly honeycomb cylindrical shell structure

Abstract

Abstract Honeycomb structure, which presents potential ability in energy absorption and impact resistance, has advantages of simplicity, lightweight, easy manufacturing and designability. In this study, honeycomb structure panel is expanded to cylindrical shell by adopting the rolled-up algorithm and the crushing behaviors of the randomly honeycomb cylindrical shell (RHCS) structures are investigated under axial loading. The influence of geometrical and topological parameters, i.e. the thickness-to-diameter ratio, cell irregularity, relative density on the deformation evolution and energy absorption performance is systematically performed. It is found that the deformation modes of RHCS structures are significantly affected by thickness-to-diameter ratio and cell irregularity. Moreover, the rate-independent, rigid–plastic hardening (R–PH) idealisation with two parameters is adopted to characterize the crushing responses of RHCS structures and the parameters are quantified as power-law relations with respect to relative density. Further, the crushing behaviors of density-graded RHCS structures with continuously varying in density are carried out under different impact velocities. Results indicated that the introduction of density gradients can strongly affect the deformation mode, crushing force and energy absorption performance of density-graded RHCS structures. Combining with analysis of crushing front propagation, the theoretical determination of crushing responses of the density-graded RHCS under different loading rates is presented based on R–PH model. The results of predicted crushing force-time histories of density-graded RHCS structures show versatile agreement with that of finite element values at both impact and support ends. Additionally, the energy absorption capacity that is related to deformation mechanisms of density-graded RHCS structures is investigated.