Crush Behaviors of Aluminum Honeycombs of Different Cell Geometries Under Compression Dominant Combined Loads

The influence of cell geometries on the quasi-static crush behaviors of aluminum honeycombs is explored by experiments. Aluminum 5052-H38 honeycomb specimens with different in-plane orientation angles, cell wall thicknesses and cell sizes were tested under compression dominant combined loads. The load histories of these specimens were obtained. A quadratic and a linear phenomenological yield criteria are used to fit the obtained experimental normal crush and shear strengths for three types of honeycomb specimens under compression dominant combined loads. The quadratic yield criterion is used to fit the experimental results for two types of honeycomb specimens with low relative densities. The linear yield criterion is used to fit the experimental results for one type of honeycomb specimens with a high relative density. The experimental results also show that the material constants for the quadratic yield criterion for the two types of specimens with low relative densities are quite different. Finally, the normal crush strength as a function of the ratio of the cell wall thickness to the cell size for honeycomb specimens of different cell geometries under pure compressive loading conditions follows the trend of the upper bound solution proposed by Wierzbicki.