Energy‐Absorbing Properties of Paper Honeycombs under Low and Intermediate Strain Rates

Abstract

The effect of the strain rate on the mechanical behaviour and energy absorption of paper honeycombs is investigated by experiments on an environmental condition designed to simulate the actual logistic environment in most of South China. The strain rate varies from 3.3 × 10−4 to 1.1 × 102 s−1. The experimental results show that the load‐carrying capacity and the energy absorption performance of paper honeycombs are insensitive to the loading speed in low strain rate range (10−4–10−2 s−1). However, the initial peak stress, the plateau stress and the densification strain of paper honeycombs under intermediate strain rate impact (10−2–102 s−1) increase with impact velocity and are obviously higher than that under static compression, thus demonstrating a certain degree of strain rate sensitivity. The restoring force due to gas compression in a confined space of hexagonal cavity contributes to the increase in dynamic plateau stress. A model is developed for the prediction of dynamic plateau stress by considering this restoring force. A good agreement between observation and prediction is obtained, indicating that the model constructed here can be used to evaluate the dynamic plateau stress for paper honeycombs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.