Collapse of a honeycomb sandwich composite in an aircraft radome

Abstract

Abstract Honeycomb sandwich composites play an important role in the aviation structural components, especially in aircraft radomes. Due to the multiple production processes, failure of the honeycomb sandwich composite usually occurs. This would affect the working stability of mechanical components made mainly of the honeycomb structural materials. In the present work, collapse failure of the honeycomb sandwich composite in an aircraft radome was investigated. The observation and analysis results show that the failure mode of the honeycomb structure is compression instability failure. There are a lot of pore defects in some local bonding areas of the honeycomb structure, forming a weak bonding area. In the process of curing and pressurization, debonding occurs at the adjacent honeycomb cells near the weak bonding area, forming a cracking band and resulting in the decrease of the stiffness and the instability failure under pressure. The work would provide reference information for the application of honeycomb sandwich composites in mechanical equipment.