Study on the deformation mode and energy absorption characteristics of a corner-enhanced biomimetic spider web hierarchical structure

Abstract

To improve the energy absorption properties of honeycomb structures based on the underlying mechanism of uniform stress dispersion and to effectively increase the strength of a spiderweb, a corner-enhanced spiderweb hierarchical honeycomb structure was proposed herein. This study involved a quasistatic compression test and simulation of a corner-enhanced spiderweb hierarchical structure complemented by 3D printing. The deformation pattern of the common spiderweb honeycomb (CSH) was //-shaped. However, the deformation pattern of the honeycomb after corner enhancement tended to be monolithic, forming an X shape. The deformation characteristics of both the CSH and the first-order local cellular elements were analyzed. The corner-enhanced honeycomb cellular elements dispersed the load onto the inner wall to achieve a common load-bearing effect. Further numerical simulation analysis was carried out in conjunction with the experiments, and local destruction analysis was performed for single-cell elements. Corner enhancement could increase the plastic hinge energy absorption of the structure, with a first-order corner-enhanced spiderweb honeycomb (CESH-F) exhibiting a 46.3 % improvement in specific energy absorption compared to that of a conventional CSH. The layers were reinforced to compress the load uniformly, and a third-order corner-enhanced spiderweb honeycomb (CESH-T) had a 25.7 % improvement in specific energy absorption compared to that of the CESH-F. In addition, optimization was performed for corner-enhanced spiderweb honeycomb (CESH) according to different helix radii. The effect of the radial line thickness on honeycomb-specific energy absorption was explored, and the radial line thickness was positively proportional to honeycomb-specific energy absorption. These findings offered valuable insights into the design of lightweight and high-energy-absorbing biomimetic structures.