Impact Response of the Honeycomb Sandwich Structure with Different Poisson’s Ratios

Abstract

The honeycomb sandwich structure is widely used in energy-absorbing facilities because it is lightweight, has a high specific stiffness and high specific strength, and is easy to process. It also has dynamic mechanical characteristics such as a high impact resistance and high energy absorption. To explore the influence of the Poisson’s ratio on the local impact resistance, this paper compares and analyzes the local impact resistance of a series of honeycomb cores with different Poisson’s ratios under the impact of a spherical projectile at different speeds. Three typical honeycombs with negative/zero/positive Poisson ratios (re-entrant hexagon, semi-re-entrant hexagon, and hexagon) are selected to change the geometric parameters in order to have the same relative density and different Poisson ratios (−2.76–3.63). The relative magnitude of the rear face sheet displacement is in the order of negative Poisson’s ratio > zero Poisson’s ratio > positive Poisson’s ratio, which reveals that the honeycomb structure with the positive Poisson’s ratio has better protection ability than the others. Finally, a dual-wall hexagonal honeycomb is proposed. The rear face sheet displacement of the dual-wall hexagonal honeycomb sandwich structure is reduced by 34.4% at 25 m/s compared with the hexagonal honeycomb, which has a better local impact resistance.