Taguchi-Grey Multi-Response Optimization on Structural Parameters of Honeycomb Core Sandwich Structure for Low Velocity Impact Test

Abstract

In this study, aluminum honeycomb core sandwich structures was investigated to find the effect of various structural parameters like cell size, cell wall thickness and core height for the low velocity impact test. The effect of these structural parameters on the response characteristics like energy absorption, impact force and honeycomb core density are determined individually by using statistical analysis based on Taguchi’s DOE. But this conventional Taguchi method deals with optimization problems only with a single response at a time. Since the sandwich structure is involved with many response parameters, the Taguchi method alone cannot be useful to obtain optimal process parameters. In the present work, an attempt has been made to derive optimal combination of structural parameters in a honeycomb core sandwich structure using grey relational analysis along with the Taguchi method. Also by using analysis of variance the significant structural parameters were determined. Results show that the most influencing structural parameters considering multiple response characteristics are cell wall thickness followed by cell size. The core height has the very least/negligible effect compared to cell size and cell wall thickness. The optimum combination of the input parameters was found using Taguchi-grey relational analysis. These findings were confirmed with the results of statistical analysis by plotting the main effect plots and Anova results.