Low-velocity impact response of tube-reinforced honeycomb sandwich structure

Abstract

To improve the load carrying capacity, structural stiffness, and impact resistance of a honeycomb sandwich structure, the honeycomb holes are filled with metallic tubes. Experimentally and numerically studies were carried out on the drop weight impact response of the tube-reinforced honeycomb sandwich structure. The results show that the stiffness and peak load of the honeycomb sandwich structure were increased by the metallic tube filler. The addition of tube filler made the Mises stress and deformation distribution of the front and back face-sheets more uniform. In addition, the tube-reinforced structure absorbed the impact energy more quickly than the empty honeycomb sandwich structure and the front face-sheet deformation was markedly reduced by tube reinforcement. The peak load and contact energy (the energy absorbed by the local deformation of sandwich structures) were predicted theoretically for both empty honeycomb sandwich structure and tube-reinforced honeycomb sandwich structure. The finite element parametric study shown that, compared with the empty honeycomb sandwich structure, the maximum deflections of the front and back face-sheets of the globally filled tube-reinforced honeycomb sandwich structure were reduced by 18.6% and 36.4% respectively. The tube-reinforced honeycomb sandwich structure is a promising structure for weight sensitive applications owing to its improved load carrying capacity and impact resistance.