Rev. Adv. Mater. Sci.

2021; 60:145–157

Research Article

Yi Luo, Ke Yuan, Lumin Shen, and Jiefu Liu*

Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in

different Poisson’s ratio under low to medium
impact loads
https://doi.org/10.1515/rams-2021-0020 the Poisson’s ratio on the impact resistance of sandwich
Received Dec 03, 2020; accepted Dec 30, 2020 panels. A control mechanism in terms of Poisson’s ratio is
proposed by combining the honeycomb core strength and
Abstract: In this study, a series of in-plane hexagonal hon-
deformation mode. In this work, the impact resistance of
eycombs with different Poisson’s ratio induced by topo-
honeycomb structures with different Poisson’s ratios are
logical diversity are studied, considering re-entrant, semi-
discussed, and a systematic parametric study is carried out,
re-entrant and convex cells, respectively. The crushing
which will provide a basis for the subsequent exploration
strength of honeycomb in terms of Poisson’s ratio is firstly
and design of new and better honeycomb structures.
presented. In the previous research, we have studied the
As we know, composite materials and structures are
compression performance of honeycomb with different neg-
prosperous in recent engineering investigations due to their
ative Poisson’s ratio. In this study, a comparative study
advanced mechanical properties and weight efficiency [1–
on the local impact resistance of different sandwich pan-
6]. For example, graphene oxide (GO) can enhance the flex-
els is conducted by considering a spherical projectile with
ural strength and flexural modulus of aramid fiber (AF)
low to medium impact speed. Some critical criteria (i.e. lo-
/ epoxy composites at different mass fraction [4]. Among
cal indentation profile, global deflection, impact force and
which hexagonal honeycomb is widely used in transporta-
energy absorption) are adopted to analyze the impact re-
tion and aviation engineering. In practical applied research,
sistance. Finally, an influential mechanism of Poisson’s
on the one hand, honeycomb can be an ideal structure for
ratio on the local impact resistance of sandwich panel is
impact or energy absorption devices for its outstanding en-
studied by considering the variation of core strength and
ergy absorption characteristic [7–11]. On the other hand, the
post-impact collapse behavior.
honeycomb structure is characterized by good airtightness,
Keywords: Sandwich panel, Poisson’s ratio, Impact resis- heat insulation and lightweight. Therefore, extensive stud-
tance ies about compression or impact behavior of honeycomb
structures attract wide attention [12–16].
The hexagonal honeycomb structure and the derived
negative Poisson’s ratio honeycomb structure originated
1 Introduction
from the discovery and imagination of the natural honey-
comb in nature. The polymorphic structure based on the an-
In this study, based on the fundamental investigations from
imal shell has also been proved to be effective in improving
the previous study, a comparative study on the local im-
the impact resistance of composite laminates. The impact
pact resistance of honeycomb sandwich panel with differ-
response and resistance of bionic sandwich structure com-
ent Poisson’s ratio is conducted. Post-impact deformation
posed of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) panel and
mode and some critical impact criteria are used to analyze
aluminum honeycomb structure were studied [17]. Natural
palm wood can improve the energy absorption capacity
of composite sandwich [18]. The crashworthiness with a
*Corresponding Author: Jiefu Liu: School of Traffic & Transporta- new negative Poisson’s ratio structure was studied by the
tion engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, biological inspiration of coconut palm [19]. In the course
China; Key Laboratory of Traffic Safety on Track, Ministry of Educa- of exploring superior performance lightweight honeycomb
tion, Changsha, Hunan, China; Email: liujiefu@csu.edu.cn
structure, expanded polystyrene (EPS) [20] and structural
Yi Luo, Ke Yuan, Lumin Shen: School of Traffic & Transportation
engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; insulated panel (SIP) [21] are widely used in honeycomb
Key Laboratory of Traffic Safety on Track, Ministry of Education, sandwich structure due to their lightweight and good in-
Changsha, Hunan, China

Open Access. © 2021 Y. Luo et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
License
146 | Y. Luo et al.
sulation. For example, the dynamic impact response of
polypropylene foam filled aluminum honeycomb is stud-
ied [22]. And Yu et al. is used in cellular structure filled with
negative Poisson’s ratio, and its two-dimensional compres-
sion behavior is studied [23].
As a special honeycomb structure, negative Poisson’s
ratio structure has been widely used in engineering appli-
cations due to its unique mechanical properties, such as
high indentation resistance, high shear stiffness, fracture
toughness and good energy dissipation capacity [24]. Li
et al. studied the nonlinear bending of honeycomb core
sandwich beams with negative Poisson’s ratio of functional
gradient [25]. Existing articles have also studied the out-
of-plane shear characteristics [26] and the in-plane impact
response [27] of the re-entrant honeycomb structure. In
addition, a recent article has also studied the method of
adding inclined walls [28] and adding narrow ribs [29] to
the cell to strengthen the re-entrant honeycomb. Regarding
the honeycomb structure with zero Poisson’s ratio, related
articles have studied its deformation in two orthogonal di-
rections [30] and bending performance [31], and also stud-
ied the influence of scale geometric parameters [32]. Grima
et al. studied the compressive strength of semi-re-entrant
honeycombs and proposed an enhanced topology design
to improve stiffness [33]. It can be seen that most of the
previous studies are based on a type of Poisson’s ratio hon-
eycomb structure.
Due to the 2D periodicity of the honeycomb structure,
it has two typical loading conditions: out-of-plane and in-
plane loading. As for out-of-plane loading, it has higher
loading carrying capability with higher initial peak force
which deteriorates the impact process under some low to
Table 1: Honeycombs with different Poisson’s ratio induced by topological diversity
Poisson’s ratio Topologies Poisson’s ratio
−3.3 0.5
−1.6 0.7
−1.0 1.0
−0.7 1.6
−0.5 3.3
0
medium kinematic impact conditions [9, 14]. As for in-plane
loading, a relatively lower initial impact force is better for
low kinematic impact. In addition, the complex collapse
mechanism of in-plane honeycomb making the cell topol-
ogy significantly affects the crushing behaviors and further
adjusting the Poisson’s ratio of the honeycomb core.
From many previous studies [8, 34–38], honeycombs
with different Poisson’s ratios show some novel mechanical
behaviors, such as material concentration for negative Pois-
son’s ratio, which significantly affects the impact behavior
of honeycomb. In the previous study, a series of Poisson’s
ratio for in-plane honeycombs have been defined by con-
sidering the connection between Poisson’s ratio and cell
topology [8].
2 Honeycombs with different
Poisson’s ratio
2.1 Topological diversity
Poisson’s ratio of hexagonal honeycomb is directly affected
by the cell topology which can be generally divided as re-
entrant, semi-re-entrant and convex honeycomb, respec-
tively. With such a topological transformation, as shown in
Table 1, the Poisson’s ratio of the honeycomb also evolves
from negative to positive (i.e. convex honeycomb with posi-
tive Poisson’s ratio, semi-re-entrant honeycomb with zero
Poisson’s ratio and re-entrant honeycomb with negative
Poisson’s ratio). More specifically, the equation of the Pois-
son’s ratio in terms of topological-related geometries: in-
Topologies Relationship
 Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in different Poisson’s ratio | 147

clined angle θ and struts ratio h/l, is derived based on stan- where the Eq. (2) considered the static property and iner-
dard beam theory to numerically characterize the relation- tia effect of the material. The static impact strength σ0 is
ship between Poisson’s ratio and topology in previous work directly written as follow based on the lower and upper
(θ is a scalar) [8]: plastic boundary [8]:
l(cos θ)2
⎧
⎨− sin θ(h−l sin θ) for re-entrant σ y t2
⎪ ⎧
⎨ 2l(h−l sin θ) sin θ for re-entrant
⎪ ⎪
⎪
v= 0 for semi-re-entrant (1) σ y t2
σ0 = 2lh sin θ for semi-re-entrant (3)
l(cos θ)2
⎪
⎪
for convex σ y t2
⎩ ⎪
⎪
sin θ(h+l sin θ) ⎩
for convex
2l(h+l sin θ) sin θ
According to Eq. (1), the relationship between geome-
tries and Poisson’s ratio is shown in Table 1. It reveals that Where σ y is the yield strength of the manufacturing mate-
lower θ or h/l lead to a larger absolute value of Poisson’s rial. *

ratio. It can also be observed on the left column in Table 1 To further deriving the unknown term ϵρd V 2 that re-
that lower θ or h/l results in a slender topology from topo- lated to inertia effect, a representative deformation element
logical perspective. Such configuration is prone to produce (RDE) is adopted in our previous work [8], as shown in
larger transverse strain with a certain longitudinal strain Figure 1. Based on the local continuously collapse bands
and therefore yields higher absolute value of Poisson’s ra- assumption, the collapse mode of honeycomb is periodic
tio. The flat surface in grey represents the relationship be- and the repeatable array element is therefore selected as
tween geometries and zero Poisson’s ratio. And it shows the RDE. In our previous work, two cells are selected at the
that the zero Poisson’s ratio is irrelevant to the diversity of layer (orange region) between the fully collapsed band and
geometries and only decided by the semi-re-entrant topol- that in front of it as highlighted in Figure 1. Considering the
ogy. Some studies have pointed out that both element size momentum balance of RDE in a short time interval from
and Poisson’s ratio can affect the impact response of honey- T = t0 to T = t1 , the dynamic impact strength σ d can be
comb structures [8]. In this paper, the impact of Poisson’s written as [8]:
ratio on the mechanical response of honeycomb sandwich ⎧
ρ0 tV 2 (2l+h)
⎪
(h−l sin θ)(2l cos θ−αt) for re-entrant
structures is mainly studied, and the element sizes L x and
⎪
⎪
σ y t2
⎪
⎪
⎨ + 2l(h−l
⎪
L y remain unchanged for different element topologies. ⎪
⎪ sin θ) sin θ
ρ0 tV 2 (2l+h) σ y t2
σ d = h(2l cos θ−αt) + 2hl sin θ for semi-re-entrant (4)
2
⎪
⎪ ρ tV (2l+h)
⎪ (h+l sin0 θ)(2l cos θ−αt) for convex
⎪
⎪
2.2 Strength analysis
⎪
σ y t2
⎪
⎪
⎩ +
2l(h+l sin θ) sin θ
Cellular structure commonly shows a plateau stage in the
Further extracting the geometrical-related terms in Eq. (4)
impact stress-strain curve which significantly affects the
and combining Eq. (1), dynamic impact strength σ d can be
impact behavior [35]. In order to theoretically incorporate
related to Poisson’s ratio and impact speeds as shown in
Poisson’s ratio into the platform impact strength of honey-
Figure 2. On the premise of exact cell wall thickness t and
comb, one-dimensional shock model which is commonly
manufacturing material yield strength σ y , the influence
used to calculate impact strength of cellular materials is
of Poisson’s ration on the impact strength is loading rate
adopted here [8]. The basic principles can be illustrated in
correlated. Under relative low impact speeds (0~35 m/s),
Figure 1. A local continuously collapse bands assumption
the impact strength increases with the rising absolute value
should be declared in advance. The part of the cells (blue
of Poisson’s ratio, noting that the topology of zero Poisson’s
region) closer to the impact end are fully collapsed and the
ratio in this paper has the same geometries θ and l as that of
dynamic impact strength σ d is directly applied on the cells
Poisson’s ratio ±1 and a small jump of σ d at zero Poisson’s
in front of the fully collapsed band. And the part of cells
ratio is occurred herein. Under relative large impact speeds
(grey region) closer to the distal end undeformed and the
(over 40 m/s), the impact strength generally decreases with
yield strength σ0 is applied on those cells.
the rising absolute value of Poisson’s ratio within negative
According to the one-dimensional shock model, the
values while increases with the absolute value of Poisson’s
empirical formula of dynamic impact strength σ d can be
ratio within positive values and positive Poisson’s ratio has
written as the function related with static impact strength
less influence on the impact strength compared to that of
σ0 , loading velocity V, relative density ρ* and densified
negative one, zero Poisson’s ratio lies in between impact
strain ϵ d [8]:
strength of Poisson’s ratio ±1.
ρ* 2
σ d = σ0 + V (2)
ϵd
148 | Y. Luo et al.

Figure 1: One-dimensional shock model for the impact behavior of honeycomb (take re-entrant honeycomb) [8].

Figure 3: (a) Experimental setup [34]; (b) One quarter of finite ele-
ment model.

The face-sheets and honeycomb core are modeled using

deformable shell elements (S4R). In order to avoid self-
Figure 2: Impact strength of honeycombs in terms of Poisson’s ratio
and crushing speeds.
penetration, the general contact in ABAQUS with the prop-
erties of tangential behavior (friction coefficient 0.2) and
normal behavior (“hard” contact) is set to all contacts. At
3 Finite element model and model least five elements on each cell wall are need to comply
with the mesh convergence, mesh size of 2 mm is applied
validation on the honeycomb stretching direction. Material of face-
sheet and honeycomb core are both aluminum. The mate-
To reduce the computational time, a quarter model of rial properties are extracted from a drop weight experimen-
the sandwich panel is established in ABAQUS/Explicit, tal study on the sandwich panel with re-entrant honeycomb
as shown in Figure 3. The projectile is simplified as rigid, core [34], with Density 2710 kg/m3 , Elastic modulus 40.3
impact velocity and mass are set at the reference point. GPa, Yield stress 118 MPa and Fracture strain 0.2. The strain
 Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in different Poisson’s ratio | 149

rate effect of aluminum is less significant, so it is ignored den separation between the indenter and sandwich panel.
here [39, 40]. Furthermore, the experiment is adopted to Because a higher speed of honeycomb core deformation
validate the finite element model. The test facility contains in the loading direction than the impactor’s speed, which
a 580 kg cylindrical-shaped falling anvil, with a diameter of resulted in a gap between the impactor and the cover plate.
150 mm. To avoid excessive local damage to the face-sheet, Combining Figure 4 and Figure 5, the applicability and ac-
the 3.6 mm steel plate is covered on the front face-sheet. curacy of the FE model are well validated.
Figure 3(b) gives the corresponding finite element model
for the experiment.
Figure 4 gives the comparisons of deformation modes
between experimental and numerical results. From the top
view in Figure 4(a), the finite element (FE) model well pre-
dicts the front face-sheet local indentation profile and face-
sheet bending mode. From the side view in Figure 4(b),
core-collapse mode with cell concentration effect that oc-
curred in an experiment is also predicted by FE model. FE
model generally gives a good prediction on both local core-
collapse and global panel deformation.
Figure 5(a) and 5(b) presents the comparison of im-
pact histories between experimental and numerical results.
Good agreement is observed for both impact force and en-
ergy absorption. The sudden fluctuation of impact force is Figure 4: Comparison between experimental and numerical results
also predicted by the FE model which is caused by the sud- in terms of deformation modes [34]: (a) Top view; (b) Side view.

Figure 5: Comparison of impact histories between experimental and numerical results [34]: (a) Impact force; (b) Energy absorption. (AXP
(auxetic honeycomb panel), ECP (equivalent conventional honeycomb pane)).
150 | Y. Luo et al.

The impact resistance of sandwich panel with honey-

4 Local impact resistance comb in different Poisson’s ratio is investigated in this sec-
tion. A spherical projectile with diameter 60 mm and mass
The honeycomb core is arrayed on the in-plane direction to
0.2 kg impacts the middle point of the panel. The global
assure the Poisson’s ratio effect producing in the plane par-
dimension of the sandwich panel is 500 mm×500 mm×26
allel to impact load, as shown in Figure 6. The honeycomb
mm, noting that the thickness consists of the core height
is orthogonal anisotropy in the plane that perpendicular
(24 mm±2), the face-sheet thickness (1 mm) and the adhe-
to impact load, divided into cell array direction and cell
sive layer (0.3 mm). Honeycombs with different Poisson’s
stretching direction. The FE model is set with the symmet-
ratios in Table 1 are comprehensively investigated here. The
ric boundary conditions because a quarter model is used,
specific geometries of different honeycombs are presented
and the external boundaries of the face-sheets are com-
in Table 2. Regarding the cell dimension L x , L y and cell wall
pletely fixed. In addition, the displacement and rotation
thickness as the same, honeycombs with different Poisson’s
on internal boundaries are limited to the plane that par-
ratios have various relative density, as shown in Table 2.
allels to impact direction. Figure 6 gives examples about
When Poisson’s ratio < 0, relative densities decreases with
three typical honeycomb topologies corresponding to Pois-
absolute value of Poisson’s ratio, when Poisson’s ratio > 0,
son’s ratio −1, 0, 1, respectively. As mentioned in section
Poisson’s ratio has little influence on relative density, not-
2.1, the cell dimension L x and L y should keep the same for
ing the relative density of zero Poisson’s ratio ranges be-
different topologies to ensure the exact cell numbers and
tween that of negative and positive ones.
honeycomb global dimension of the sandwich panel is 500
Spherical projectiles with various incident speeds from
mm×500 mm×26 mm in x, z, y direction, respectively.
25 m/s to 100 m/s are studied. Differing from conventional

Figure 6: FE model of Sandwich panels with different in-plane honeycombs (re-entrant, semi-re-entrant, convex).

Table 2: Geometrics of honeycomb cores with different Poisson’s ratio.

Poisson’s −3.3 −1.6 −1 −0.7 −0.5 0 0.5 0.7 1 1.6 3.3

ratio

h (mm) 4.5 4.9 5.4 6.0 6.8 4.1 1.3 2.1 2.7 3.2 3.6
l (mm) 2.4 2.5 2.7 3.1 3.6 2.7 3.6 3.1 2.7 2.5 2.4
θ (∘ ) 10 20 30 40 50 30 50 40 30 20 10
Relative 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.12 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.11
density
(%)
 Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in different Poisson’s ratio | 151

Figure 7: Local impact modes of sandwich panel with in-plane honeycomb under 50 m/s projectile (take Poisson’s ratio 1 as example).

honeycomb sandwich panel, the in-plane configuration is

adopted to assure the Poisson’s ratio effect. Figure 7 char-
acterizes the impact mechanism of in-plane honeycombs
in two orthogonal directions: cell stretching direction (red
arrow) and cell array direction (blue arrow), defining the
deformation mode in the red arrow direction as primary
mode and that in the blue arrow direction as a secondary
mode. Taking the sandwich panel in Poisson’s ratio 1 as
an example and incident speed is 50 m/s. For the primary
mode, the honeycomb core displays a plastic hinge rotation
in vertex, while for the secondary mode, the cell stretching
layout of the in-plane honeycomb core induces a moving
Figure 8: Comparison of impact force-displacement curve in terms
plastic hinge line in the secondary view. With such orthog-
of sandwich panel with in-plane and out-of-plane honeycomb.
onal anisotropic modes, an obvious elliptical indentation
profile can be observed in the displacement contour. The
indentation profile is divided into inside and outside con- and elastic unloading (rebound), therefore three distinct
tact region. Honeycomb core under uniaxial compression response stages are marked in the impact force curve as the
inside the contact region and the rotation of plastic hinges plateau, softening, and bouncing stage, respectively. Stage
is prone to induce the concomitant motion of the adjacent 1 relates to the local indentation, the load is mainly carried
cells outside the contact region. For the honeycombs with by the honeycomb compression and front face-sheet mem-
Poisson’s ratio 1, a cell expansion behavior can be observed brane, a gradually increasing plateau stage of the impact
in both inside and outside contact regions. force is therefore produced and the energy absorption of
A comparison between a sandwich panel with in-plane this stage is the most significant during the impact process.
and out-of-plane honeycomb core in terms of impact force is Stage 2 relates to the global deflection, the load is mainly
firstly given in Figure 8. The deformation mode of the sand- carried by the overall deflection of the structure and a soft-
wich panel includes local indentation, global deflection ening stage with a decreasing impact force has occurred.
152 | Y. Luo et al.
Figure 9: Poisson’s ratio on the deformation modes of sandwich panel.
Stage 3 relates to the projectile bouncing behavior with
the elastic strain energy be released.
From Figure 8, the sandwich panel with in-plane hon-
eycomb has a lower and longer plateau stage compared
to the counterpart. Meanwhile, the softening and bounc-
ing stage is shorter. From energy absorbing and buffering
perspective, the sandwich panel with in-plane honeycomb
core has better behavior compared to the most commonly
used conventional sandwich panel with out-of-plane hon-
eycomb core.
Figure 9 gives the comparison between cross-sectional
views in terms of typical Poisson’s ratios (±1, ±0.5, 0) sub-
jected to 25 m/s and 100 m/s incident speeds. In general,
when the impact velocity is 25 m/s, the honeycomb core
inside the contact area is not fully densified and the deflec-
tion of the rear face-sheet is small. When the impact speed
reaches 100 m/s, the honeycomb core inside the contact
area is fully densified and the deformation area increases
significantly while the deflection of the rear face-sheet is
more serious.
When Poisson’s ratio is negative, a material concentra-
tion effect to the contact region of the honeycomb core is
observed (arrow direction in Figure 9). When Poisson’s ratio
is zero, the honeycomb core mainly undergoes progressive
folding along the incident direction. When Poisson’s ratio
is positive, a material expansion effect to the outside con-
tact region is captured. The different flow behavior of the
core is attributed to the topological diversity correspond-
ing to the Poisson ratio. In specific, concentration and ex-
pansion behaviors are induced by re-entrant and convex
topology, respectively. A semi-re-entrant topology produces
no transverse strain and stable collapse bands along the
impact direction are therefore observed. Also noting that
the concentration or expansion behaviors are weakened
with the increasing absolute value of Poisson’s ratio. For
the decreasing inclined angle θ, the deformation mode of
the honeycomb core becomes harder to be controlled and
a post-buckling is prone to occur on the inclined cell wall
instead of plastic hinge rotation.
Under relative low impact speed (25 m/s), the negative
Poisson’s ratio core results in a relatively small indenta-
tion area of front face-sheet that induced by concentration
behavior (definition referred to Figure 9), while the posi-
tive Poisson’s ratio core leads to a larger indentation area
for the expansion behavior. Interestingly finding that zero
Poisson’s ratio has the largest indentation area even though
there is rarely transverse strain, preliminary explanation
attributed to the minimum constraints of front and rear
face-sheets which benefits from progressive deformation
mode. Under relatively high impact speed (100 m/s), both
 Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in different Poisson’s ratio
Figure 10: Maximum displacement of front and rear face-sheet.
face-sheet and honeycomb core produce more serious plas-
tic deformation. The influence of Poisson’s ratio on the de-
formation modes is similar to that mentioned above, zero
Poisson’s ratio has the largest indentation area with the
most cells of honeycomb core participating in impact resis-
tance.
To mathematically describe the deformation mode of
sandwich panels in different Poisson’s ratio, Figure 10 com-
pares the maximum displacement of front and rear face-
sheet of sandwich panels with different Poisson’s ratios.
Generally, define the maximum displacement of front face-
sheet as dent depth, the maximum displacement of rear
face-sheet as deflection and the difference between them
as core compression depth. The deflection indicates the in-
tensity of the impact wave that reaches the rear face-sheet
and core compression depth reveals the utilization of core
among a sandwich panel. Smaller deflection and larger
core compression depth both reveal better buffering-related
characteristics.
Under relative low impact speed (25 m/s), the core uti-
lization decreases with the absolute value of Poisson’s ratio
while the deflection increases with it. In another word, the
buffering behavior of the sandwich panel decreases with
the absolute value of Poisson’s ratio and the zero Poisson’s
ratio shows the best buffering characteristic. Under relative
large impact speed (100 m/s), Poisson’s ratio has minimal
influence on the core utilization due to a high-speed impact
densified the honeycomb core inside the contact region.
Considering nonzero Poisson’s ratio, deflection decreases
with the Poisson’s ratio and negative < zero < positive for
the equal absolute value. For different impact speeds, an
obvious control region in terms of Poisson’s ratio can be
| 153
found in Figure 10, Poisson’s ratio within ±1 has a more
significant influence on the deformation mode, otherwise
its influence is less significant.
In this section, critical criteria are evaluated to inves-
tigate the influence of Poisson’s ratio on the impact resis-
tance.
Figure 11 further compares the impact force of sand-
wich panels with different Poisson’s ratio. To more clearly
presents the comparison, typical Poisson’s ratios as −1, 0,
1 are compared. Under relative low impact speed (25 m/s),
based on the three stages, zero Poisson ratio shows the
longest plateau stage and a shortest softening stage, nega-
tive Poisson’s ratio shows the largest impact load in plateau
stage, positive Poisson’s ratio has a similar impact load as
zero Poisson’s ratio while the stage is shorter. Three sand-
wich panels all behave a similar bouncing stage. The di-
vergence on impact force of different sandwich panels con-
forms to that on crushing strength as shown in Figure 2.
Under a relative large impact speed (100 m/s), the impact
force of sandwich panels increases significantly and the
fluctuation is more dramatic. The relative magnitude of
impact load is in the order of negative Poisson’s ratio >
zero Poisson’s ratio > positive Poisson’s ratio, which is also
consistent with the crushing strength in Figure 2 Hence,
combining different loading rates, the impact resistance of
the honeycomb core is mainly decided by the core strength.
Projectile with high impact speed results in densification of
honeycomb inside the contact region and therefore the du-
ration of plateau stage for different sandwich panels tends
to be consistent. In general, the negative Poisson’s ratio
shows a better impact resistance under different impact
speeds, the zero Poisson’s ratio presents a better buffering
154 | Y. Luo et al.

Figure 11: Impact force of sandwich panel with Poisson’s ratio as −1, 0, 1.

characteristic under relative low impact speed. Besides, the panel and the indentation area. The total energy absorp-
relative impact load of sandwich panels can be predicted tion of the sandwich panel is negatively correlated with
by the crushing strength of the honeycomb core. But the di- Poisson’s ratio except for the zero one. Also founding that
vergence on the crushing strength of the honeycomb core in zero Poisson’s ratio has the best energy absorption due to
Figure 2 is more serious than that of sandwich panels in Fig- the larger indentation area with more cells collapsed (as
ure 9. The reason is that the honeycomb core is orthotropic shown in Figure 9). In addition, the same control region in
anisotropy when subjected to local impact (as shown in terms of Poisson’s ratio as that under low-speed impact is
Figure 9). In cell stretching direction, honeycomb core be- also found.
haves a plastic hinge moving collapse mode, by which the To further investigate the influence of Poisson’s ratios
equivalent strength in the cell stretching direction is higher on energy absorption mechanism, Figure 13 shows the indi-
than that in cell array direction with plastic hinge rotation vidual energy absorption ratio of sandwich panel’s compo-
mode. Therefore, the divergence on strength of honeycomb nents (front, rear face-sheet, and honeycomb core). Under
core under uniform loading is more serious than that under relatively low impact speed (25 m/s), the impact energy
concentrate load. is mainly dissipated by the front face-sheet and honey-
Energy absorption is the most intuitive index to eval- comb core, due to a small deflection as shown in Figure 9,
uate the cushioning characteristics of sandwich panels. the rear face-sheets contributes little energy absorption. A
Figure 12 compares the energy absorption of sandwich pan- higher proportion of honeycomb core energy absorption is
els in different Poisson’s ratio. Under relatively low impact more important for the sandwich structure that represents a
speed (25 m/s), the honeycomb core is not fully densified higher utilization of core and it is negatively correlated with
and the difference in energy absorption mainly comes from the absolute value of Poisson’s ratios. With the same abso-
the core compression depth (as shown in Figure 10) and lute value of Poisson’s ratio, the proportion of honeycomb
the indentation area (as shown in Figure 9). The total en- core is positive Poisson’s ratio < negative Poisson’s ratio
ergy absorption is negatively correlated with the absolute < zero Poisson’s ratio. Although the compression depth of
value of Poisson’s ratio. Under the premise of the exact negative Poisson’s ratio is smaller (as shown in Figure 10),
absolute value of Poisson’s ratio, the magnitude of energy higher impact strength makes the core proportion higher
absorption is negative Poisson’s ratio < positive Poisson’s than that of positive Poisson’s ratio. Under a relative large
ratio < zero Poisson’s ratio. Noting that the control region impact speed (100 m/s), the proportion of honeycomb core
as Poisson’s ratio within ±1 is also observed in Figure 12 decreases dramatically due to the larger overall deflection
when Poisson’s ratio is over such range, its influence is of the sandwich panel, and the rear face-sheet contributes
greatly reduced. Under relatively high impact speed (100 certain energy absorption. For the honeycomb core is fully
m/s), since the honeycomb core in the contact area has densified under such loading conditions, the proportion of
been fully compressed, the difference in energy absorption honeycomb core in terms of Poisson’s ratio is basically con-
mainly comes from the overall deflection of the sandwich sistent with the relative value of the core’s impact strength
 Sandwich panel with in-plane honeycombs in different Poisson’s ratio | 155

Figure 12: Energy absorption of sandwich panel with different Poisson’s ratios.

Figure 13: Individual energy absorption of face-sheets and honeycomb core.

(Figure 2). In general, the sandwich panel mainly depends
on the honeycomb core to dissipate impact energy under
low-speed impact while mainly depends on the face-sheets
under high-speed impact.
is attributed to plastic hinge rotation collapse mode in ar-
ray direction and plastic hinge moving collapse mode in
stretching direction. In addition, Negative Poisson’s ratio
results in a higher impact load-carrying capability while
zero Poisson’s ratio leads to a better buffering and energy
absorption behavior.

5 Conclusions Founding information: Hunan Provincial Natural Science

Foundation of China (2019JJ50811).
In this paper, the systematic study on the local impact
resistance of sandwich panels with honeycomb in differ-
Author contributions: Yi Luo: Funding acquisition,
ent Poisson’s ratio is performed. The crushing strength of
Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data Cu-
honeycomb related to Poisson’s ratio is derived by using
ration, Writing – Original Draft; Ke Yuan: Methodology,
one-dimensional shock model which combined the impact
Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – Review &
speeds. The results show that the sandwich panel with in-
Editing; Lumin Shen: Supervision, Resources, Validation,
plane honeycomb core has a prolonged and stable plateau
Writing – Review & Editing; Jiefu Liu: Funding acquisition,
stage, with a deeper and larger indentation profile but
conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Resources,
a slighter global deflection compared to that with out-of-
Project administration, Writing – Review & Editing.
plane core. And better crushing characteristic of the former
156 | Y. Luo et al.

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