Mechanical properties of the hierarchical honeycombs with stochastic Voronoi sub-structures

Abstract

The introduction of hierarchy into structures has been credited with changing mechanical properties. In this study, periodically hierarchical honeycomb with irregular sub-structure cells has been designed based on the Voronoi tessellation algorithm. Numerical investigation has been performed to determine the influence of structural hierarchy and irregularity on the in-plane elastic properties. Irregular hierarchical honeycombs can be up to 3 times stiffer than regular hexagonal honeycombs on an equal density basis. Both the stiffness and Poisson's ratio of the hierarchical honeycomb are insensitive to the degree of regularity, and depend on the cell-wall thickness-to-length ratio of the super-structure. Increasing the relative lengths of the super- and sub-structures results in the increment of Young's modulus, whereas Poisson's ratio almost remains constant varying from 1.0 to 0.7.