Flexural and Out-of-Plane Compression Performance of Hexagonal Rubber Wood Core Sandwich with Increasing Cell Wall Thickness

Abstract

This paper investigates the rubber wood honeycomb core by manipulating its cell wall thickness. Rubber wood honeycomb core was fabricated with cell walls range from 1 mm to 3 mm. The impacts of the cell geometrical parameters on the flexural and out-of-plane compression performance are studied. In the case of solid rubber wood without facesheet, the density is much higher than those rubber wood honeycomb composites. The failure can be disastrous without facesheet under bending. Rubber wood honeycomb sandwiches are able to offer the similar specific flexural strength with lower density. With increasing wall thickness from 1 mm to 3 mm, the specific flexural strength increased by 12.32 %. Meanwhile, specific compressive strength improved by 11 % from 1 mm to 2 mm. However, its specific strength dropped by 3.55 % when the wall thickness at 3 mm. Minimum improvement in the compressive strength per density has caused the decrement.