Accepted Manuscript

Metallic tube-reinforced aluminum honeycombs: Compressive and bending

performances

Yunwei Zhang, Leilei Yan, Wanbo Zhang, Pengbo Su, Bin Han, Shuxiang Guo

PII: S1359-8368(18)34138-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2019.04.044
Reference: JCOMB 6783

To appear in: Composites Part B

Received Date: 1 December 2018

Revised Date: 1 April 2019
Accepted Date: 29 April 2019

Please cite this article as: Zhang Y, Yan L, Zhang W, Su P, Han B, Guo S, Metallic tube-reinforced
aluminum honeycombs: Compressive and bending performances, Composites Part B (2019), doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2019.04.044.

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Metallic tube-reinforced aluminum honeycombs: Compressive and bending

performances

Yunwei Zhanga,d,&, Leilei Yanb,c,*,&, Wanbo Zhangd, Pengbo Suc,e, Bin Hanf, Shuxiang Guoa,d

a Aeronautics Engineering College, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an 710051, China

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b School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China

c State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Xi’an Jiaotong University,

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Xi’an 710049, China

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d Department of Basic Sciences, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an 710051, China

e State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of

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Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
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f School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China

* Corresponding author. E-mail: yanleilei@nwpu.edu.cn

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& These authors contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors

Abstract:
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Aluminum honeycombs are widely applied in weight sensitive applications, increasing their
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specific strength and energy absorption capacity are rather important. Thin-walled metallic tube was

used to enhance the mechanical properties of aluminum honeycomb and formed a novel
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tube-reinforced honeycomb structure. Its compressive and three-point bending performances were

studied experimentally and numerically. Due to tube filling, the specific compressive strength, elastic
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modulus and energy absorption have been increased by 16%, 26% and 73%, and the specific bending
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load and stiffness increased by 42% and 62% respectively. The strengthen mechanism study indicated

that the sum of tube and honeycomb caused the increase of compressive properties, and aluminum tube

filling changed the stress distribution and expanded the stress concentration region which led to a

transformation of bending failure mode. The present reinforcement method will make honeycomb more

competitive in light-weight structure applications.

Key Words: Honeycomb; Hybrid; Mechanical properties; Finite element analysis (FEA); Buckling;

Energy absorption.
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1. Introduction

Honeycomb and its sandwich structures have been widely used in weight sensitive applications,

such as aircraft, high-speed trains and other light-weight vehicles [1-4]. The main advantages of such

light-weight structures were high specific strength and high specific energy absorption (SEA) for

honeycombs [5-6], and high flexural rigidity and bending strength [7-11] for honeycomb core

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sandwich structures. Therefore, the mechanical properties of honeycomb-based light-weight structures

have been widely designed and studied [12-15]. Kee et al. [5] experimentally studied the mechanical

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properties of honeycomb core sandwich structure in three-point bending, axial compression and

lateral crushing loading conditions. Petras et al. [7] constructed a failure mode map for sandwich

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beam with GFRP laminate skins and Nomex honeycomb core under three-point bending, and the

results showing that the failure mode was dependent on the ratio of skin thickness to span length and

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relative density of honeycomb. The effects of parameters on the mechanical properties of honeycomb

were also investigated by Sun et al. [8], such as the thickness of skins/face-sheets, hexagonal cell size,
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foil thickness and height of honeycomb core. Sun et al. [9] experimentally and numerically studied

the dynamic response and failure mechanisms of honeycomb sandwich panels subjected to
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high-velocity impact. The discrete optimization method was used to generate an optimal design of a
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sandwich structure for achieving the highest specific energy absorption without perforation under

certain impact energy. The discrete optimization method could be also used to optimize other practical
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engineering problems to find the optimal structure for a specific purpose [10-12]. For sandwich

structure, when the weight of honeycomb core accounts for 50%-66.7%, it has been suggested have
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optimum mechanical properties [13]. Such studies showing that honeycombs have significant

advantages in load carrying and energy absorption applications. Therefore, the rapid development of
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industrial technology, especially aerospace requires light-weight materials and structures (such as
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honeycomb) have much lower density, higher strength and energy absorption efficiency. For this

purpose, several novel methods and structures were used to form composite structures and anticipated

to have higher specific strength and energy absorption (SEA) [20-28].

Methods were developed to form novel honeycomb structures to increase the mechanical

performances of honeycomb, such as zero Poisson's ratio [20], re-entrant anti-trichiral [21], double-V

[22]and hierarchical [23-25] honeycombs. Especially for the hierarchical honeycomb, compared with

the regular one, the first- and second-order hierarchical honeycombs improved the SEA by 81.3% and
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185.7%, respectively [25]. Besides these designs, Sun et al. [26] used periodical grids to reinforce soft

honeycomb core of sandwich structures. The hybrid core sandwich specimens provided increased

stiffness, specific stiffness, energy absorption and critical load, which were higher than the sum of

honeycomb core sandwich specimens and grid core sandwich specimens. Du et al. [27] used

paper-reinforced polymer (PRP) composites as skin materials and resin-impregnated aramid paper as

honeycomb core to fabricate light-weight sandwich panel constructions. Such sandwich structure had

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comparable bending rigidity and flexural load bearing capability but lower areal weights when

compared with some commercial products for automotive interior applications. Tao et al. [28] proposed

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a novel in-plane graded honeycomb and its dynamic behavior under out-of-plane compression was

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investigated using numerical simulation and theoretical analysis. The crushing strength and energy

absorption capacity were enhanced by positive gradient structure design.

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Foams and fibers were also used to reinforce honeycombs to increase its strength and energy

absorption performances. Liu et al. [6, 29] intensified the aluminum honeycomb by filling with
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expanded polypropylene foam. The peak strength, mean crushing strength and total energy absorption

under the axial compression and the SEA under lateral crushing were increased. Antali et al. [30]
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embedded carbon fiber plastic tubes into the aluminum honeycomb holes to increase the SEA capacity

for compression tests. Such polypropylene foam could increase the mechanical behaviors of
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honeycombs dramatically, but also increase its density significantly [29]. Besides polypropylene foams,
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fiber reinforced honeycombs were also effective in impact resistance [31-32].

Tube structures have outstanding advantages in axial load carrying applications and are also used
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as a reinforced structure. Zhang et al. [33] investigated the square aluminum tube reinforced

thin-walled beams under quasi-static and dynamic bending tests. The tube fillers considerably
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improving the performance of thin-walled beams and outperform the aluminum foam filler. Wang et al.
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[30] experimentally studied the mechanical performances of energy absorption and deformation mode

of honeycomb cells filled with circular tubes (HFCT) under axial loading, and showing evident

promotion in energy absorption. Honeycombs also have advantages in blast resistance [35-36]. Liu [36]

investigated the blast resistance performances of the sandwich plate filled with HFCT core numerically.

The results showing tube filling have advantages for honeycombs in energy absorption and blast

resistance. Besides honeycomb, tube structures also used to reinforce foam structures. The

energy-absorbing characteristics of polymer foams reinforced with small carbon fiber reinforced epoxy
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tubes were experimentally studied [37-38]. Yan et al [39] recently reported a metallic tube enhanced

aluminum foam, showing that metallic tube filling can significantly increase the compressive strength

and energy absorption of aluminum foam.

Further more, the aluminum tube and the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) tube were used to

reinforce each other under quasi-static axial compression [10] and three-point bending test [11].

To increase the mechanical properties of aluminum honeycomb and its sandwich structures,

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metallic tubes were used to form tube-reinforced honeycomb in the present study. Compressive and

three-point bending loads were carried experimentally and numerically on tube-reinforced honeycomb,

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as well as empty honeycomb and aluminum tubes for comparison. The enhancement on specific

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compressive strength, elastic modulus and energy absorption under compressive load, and three-point

bending load and stiffness were investigated. The failure mode and enhancement mechanisms were

also studied. In addition, the specific strength and energy absorption per unit mass of the present

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tube-reinforced honeycomb were also compared with the competitive core designs.
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2. Experimental measurement

2.1 Materials and fabrication

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Fig. 1 illustrated the geometry parameters of specimens for compressive and three-point bending
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test. Honeycomb (Fig. 1 (a)) and tube-reinforced honeycomb (Fig. 1 (b)) were prepared for

compression tests, and which were also acted as the core of sandwich structure for three-point bending
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tests Fig. 1 (c) and Fig. 1 (d). The dimensions of hexagon side length (Lh =3mm) and the wall thickness

(Th =0.05mm) of honeycomb; the outside diameter (Φt =10mm), wall thickness (Tt =0.5mm), height (Ht
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=20mm) of metallic tubes and the thickness (Tf =1mm) of face-sheets for sandwich beams were all

fixed. The honeycomb and face-sheets were made of aluminum alloy 3003, and the tubes were made of
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aluminum alloy 6061.

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Specimens were cut from commercial honeycomb sheet by Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM)

as well as aluminum tubes and face-sheets. For tube-reinforced honeycombs, through holes were

perforated in the middle of honeycomb for tube filling firstly. And then it was fixed with aluminum

tubes and face-sheets by epoxy glue. Before assembling, surface cleaning was applied to aluminum

honeycombs, tubes and face-sheets. The prepared specimens for compressive test and three-point

bending test were shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 respectively.

2.2 Compressive test

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The detailed parameters and images of specimens for compression tests were shown in Table 1

and Fig. 2. Out-of-plane quasi-static compression tests were carried out by the electronic universal

testing machine (INSTRON-3382) at ambient temperature as shown in Fig. 4, with a fixed loading rate

of 1mm/min. At least 80% compressive strain was achieved or each specimen to ensure complete

deformation and energy absorption. Digital images of each sample were acquired by a video camera to

study deformation modes and failure mechanisms (as well as three-point bending test).

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2.3 Three-point bending test

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Specimens for three-point bending test consist of five unit-cells compared to compression test

specimens (both empty and tube-reinforced sandwich structures). The detailed parameters and images

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of specimens for three-point bending test were summarized in Table 2 and Fig. 3.

The three-point bending tests were also carried out by the electronic universal testing machine

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(model INSTRON-3382) with a fixed loading rate of 1mm/min at ambient temperature, as illustrated in

Fig. 4. The span length was set to be 160mm. And the diameters of support and loading bars were
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10mm, according to ASTM: C393 standard [40].

3 Numerical investigation
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3.1 Materials properties

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The quasi-static compressive and three-point bending tests were numerically simulated by
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ABAQUS/Explicit, using same geometrical parameters with the experimental specimens. The density

(  Al 3003 =2730kg/m3), Young’s modulus ( EAl 3003 =69GPa) and yield strength (  Al 3003 =185MPa) of
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aluminum alloy 3003 were used for face-sheets and honeycomb in the finite element analysis. The

aluminum alloy 6061 with the density (  Al 6061 =2700kg/m3), Young’s modulus ( EAl 6061 =69GPa) and
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yield strength (  Al 6061 =227.5MPa) were used for the tubes.

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3.2 Finite element model

The finite element (FE) model for compression tests was shown in Fig. 5 (a), the honeycomb was

compressed between two rigid plates. The bottom plate was fixed, and the top plate could only move

for z-direction. And the FE model for three-point bending tests was shown in Fig. 5 (b), the sandwich

structure was supported by two fixed rigid bars, and the top rigid bar compressed the structure from

z-direction.

Due to the thin thickness of the honeycomb, shell parts (S4R) were used for aluminum
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honeycomb. Solid element (C3D8R) was employed for aluminum tubes, and rigid element (R3D4) was

used for the rigid part. Tie constraint was used to simulate the honeycomb adhesive connection

between honeycomb and face-sheets as well as honeycomb and tubes. The friction coefficient was set

to be 0.2 as the general contact between other surface pairs, and the quasi-static loading speed of

simulation was set to 1m/s. To verify the quasi-static progress, two principles need to be observed.

Firstly, the total kinetic energy has to be very small compared to the total internal energy. Secondly, the

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crushing force-displacement response must be independent from the applied velocity [5, 41]. Mesh size

sensitivity studies were also carried for all FE models.

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4 Results and discussion

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4.1 Compressive response

4.1.1 Experiment

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Under uniaxial compression tests, typical nominal stress versus strain curves of empty honeycomb
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(CE-1) and tube-reinforced honeycomb (CT-1) were shown in Fig. 6. For reference, the stress-strain

curve of tube which used to reinforce the honeycomb under uniaxial compression tests was also
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included.

Details of stress-strain curves as Fig. 6 shown can be seen as follows: ⅰ) For empty honeycomb
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(curve, CE-1), after a linear and nonlinear increase the compressive stress reached its peak (3.38MPa)
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and declined subsequently, and then present plateau region like foam structures (1.3MPa) [42]. When

the compress strain undergoes till 0.8, the densification occurred and caused a dramatic increase of

compressive stress. ⅱ) For empty aluminum tube (curve, Tube), differs to aluminum honeycomb, its
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stress-strain curve showing multiple peaks and valleys before densification occurred due to layer by

layer buckling of the empty tube (Fig. 7 (c)). ⅲ) The curve shape of tube-reinforced honeycomb (curve,
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CT-1) is similar to that of empty aluminum tube. For contrast, the sum of empty honeycomb (curve,
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CE-1) and empty aluminum tube (curve, Tube) which were tested separately also showing in Fig. 6

(curve, CE-1+Tube), and agreed well with tube-reinforced honeycomb. In other words, the strength of

novel designed tube-reinforced honeycomb was just the sum of aluminum honeycomb and tube.

Images in Fig. 7 showing the deformation history of empty honeycomb, tube-reinforced

honeycomb and empty tube at selected points marked in A~E in Fig. 6. When the first peak occurred,

the compressive strain of tube-reinforced honeycomb increases from 0.008 to 0.032 compared to empty

honeycomb, whereas, its densification strain declined from 0.809 to 0.704 which is similar to
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aluminum tube (0.709). The specimens all collapsed from one side layer by layer which causes the

fluctuation of stress-strain curves, and each formation of folding for aluminum tube and

tube-reinforced honeycomb related to one stress peak and valley marked in Fig. 6. The images after

compression (Fig. 7, Final) indicated that the honeycomb and aluminum tube almost have no effect on

each other.

As summarized in Table 3, for tube-reinforced honeycomb (CT), the peak stress (  peak )
c

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increased from 3.38MPa to 5.47MPa, and elastic modulus E increased from 509MPa to 640MPa

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compared to empty honeycomb (CE), respectively. With consideration of weight alternation, the

 peak
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normalized peak stress was also increased from 0.7 to 0.81, where  Al 3003 =2730
( Al 3003 c /  Al 3003 )

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Kg/m3,  Al 3003 =185MPa was the density and yield stress of aluminum alloy 3003 respectively, and

the average density  c of specimens for compression tests was shown in Table 3.

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The energy absorption capacity was represented by energy absorption of per unit volume (Wv),

which could be obtained through the integration of the stress-strain curves:


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Wv    d  (1)
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where the strain of specimens ε=0.5 was adopted here.
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In addition, the mass was an important factor for weight sensitive application. Therefore, the

specific energy absorption (SEA) was another important parameter, which could be defined as [42]:
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Wv
Wm  (2)
c
where the  c was the average density of the specimens.
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The energy absorption per unit volume (Wv) and per unit mass (Wm) of specimens were also

summarized in Table 3. The results indicated that due to aluminum tube filling, the tube-reinforced
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honeycomb (CT) have a significant increase of Wv and Wm by 140% and 73% respectively. The
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benefits of metallic tube filling on energy absorption of aluminum honeycomb were shown obviously

in Fig. 8.

4.1.2 FE analysis

The FE analysis was used to study the strengthen mechanisms of tube-reinforced honeycombs. As

shown in Fig. 9, the numerical simulated stress-strain curves of empty (CE-FE) and tube-reinforced

(CT-FE) honeycombs agree well with the experimental ones. In addition, the simulated deformation

modes also matching the experimental ones well as showing in Fig. 7.

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As shown in Table 3, the simulated strength and energy absorption of both empty (CE-FE) and

tube-reinforced (CT-FE) honeycombs are reasonable and fit well with the experimental ones. Note

that for elastic modulus E, the numerical results were larger than the experimental ones. The

inconsistency of E was suggested to be as follows: the compressive punch was treated as an ideal

rigid plate in FE analysis, however, in the experimental tests, the machine itself and punches all had

its own rigidness which was neglected in FE analysis. Nevertheless, the experimental and numerical

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results are all indicated that the tube-reinforced honeycombs have dramatically increased compressive

strength, elastic modulus E, energy absorption (both Wv and Wm) compared to empty honeycombs.

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To better understanding the strengthen mechanism, the simulated section images of empty and

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tube-reinforced honeycombs were shown in Fig. 10. The deformation mode of tube-reinforced

honeycomb (Fig. 10 (b)) have no distinct difference compared with empty honeycomb (Fig. 10 (a)),

that means the deformation of aluminum tube and honeycomb deforms individually. In other words, the

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present designed aluminum tube and honeycomb have no effect on each other. However, the aluminum
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foam-filled corrugated sandwich panel [42-43] and aluminum foam-filled tube [44-45] all showing a

significant coupling effect. Therefore, the further study of tube-reinforced honeycombs by strength
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matching of tube and honeycomb may also have a coupling effect which may cause the strength and

energy absorption further increased.

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4.1.3 Structure optimization

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Due to limitations of experimental conditions, only the honeycomb reinforced with the tube

(Tt =0.5mm) was experimentally studied. The compressive performance of the tube-reinforced
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honeycomb with different tube wall thickness (Tt =0.5mm, 0.3mm, and 0.1mm) was studied by

FE analysis. As shown in Fig. 11, the stress-strain curves of the tube-reinforced honeycomb (CT-FE)
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with different tube wall thickness have almost coincided with the curves (CE-FE+Tube-FE) which
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were the sum of the empty honeycomb (CE-FE) and the corresponding tube (Tube), respectively. With

the tube (Tt =0.5mm, 0.3mm, and 0.1mm) filling, the Wm of the tube-reinforced honeycombs were

increased by 57%, 24% and 15% respectively compared with the empty one. It indicated that the

tube-reinforced honeycomb with thicker tube wall thickness had higher SEA.

4.2 Bending response

4.2.1 Experiment

The load-displacement responses of both empty (TB-1 and TB-2) and tube-reinforced sandwich
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beam (TB-T-1 and TB-T-2) under three-point bending tests were compared in Fig. 12. And images of

specimens under selected bending displacement δ marked in load-displacement curves (Fig. 12) were

shown in Fig. 13.

As shown in Fig. 12, for the empty sandwich beam, after a linear and nonlinear increase, the

bending load decreased and then undergoes a plateau region. However, for the tube-reinforced

sandwich beam, the bending load declined dramatically after its peak arrived, and the sustained load is

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lower than that of the empty one. As the collapse history shown in Fig. 13 (a), for the empty sandwich

beam, the top face-sheet deforms elastically and honeycomb collapses locally (below loading bar)

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which causes the decrease of bending load after its peak (point A). With the three-point bending

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progress, the local collapse of honeycomb continues and the plastic yielding of top face-sheet appears

(point B and C). As the final image shown, no debonding occurred during the whole bending process,

and local collapse and yielding of top face-sheet was the main deformation mode. For contrast, due to

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tube filling, the local collapse of the tube-reinforced sandwich beam was much more difficult to occur,
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which caused the increase of the peak bending load. The debonding of epoxy glue between its bottom

face-sheet and honeycomb core led to the bending load decrease dramatically, and which was the
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dominant failure mode, as shown in Fig. 13 (b). Different to the empty one, the local failure of

honeycomb in the tube-reinforced sandwich beam was transverse cracking instead of compression, and
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the reason was caused by the enhancement of compressive strength due to tube filling discussed before.
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Fpeak
The measured peak loading force (Fpeak) and its normalized form of both empty
(  tb /  Al 3003 )
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(TB) and tube-reinforced sandwich beam (TB-T) were summarized in Table 4.  tb was the average

density of the specimens for three-point bending tests. The results showing that due to metallic tube
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reinforcement, the Fpeak of aluminum honeycomb sandwich beam increased by 64% compared with
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Fpeak
empty one. With consideration of density increment, the normalized form still has a
(  tb /  Al 3003 )

significant increment (42%). What’s more, besides bending load resistance, its bending stiffness

(defined as the slope of the elastic region) also have a dramatical increase of 62%.

4.2.2 FE analysis

To better understanding the bending behavior and enhancement mechanisms, FE simulation was

carried. As shown in Fig. 14, the simulated load-displacement curve (TB-FE) of the honeycomb
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sandwich structure had a good agreement with the experimental measurement result (TB-1). But for the

tube-reinforced beam, the simulated load-displacement curves (TB-T-FE) only had a good agreement

with the experimental curve (TB-T-1) before the peak load point. After the peak load point, the FE

result (TB-T-FE) was much larger than the experimental result (TB-T-1). This is due to the debonding

occurred at this stage between the honeycomb core and the below face-sheet. Compared Fig. 13 (b)

with Fig. 15 (b), the debonding occurred can be obviously observed in the experiment specimen, while

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an ideal bonding surface was considered in the present FE model. For empty sandwich beam, the Mises

stress S concentrated on top loading bar with a small region (as Fig. 15 (a) shown). For contrast, the

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region of stress concentration was expanded for the tube-reinforced sandwich beam (as Fig. 15 (b)

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shown). With the region of stress concentration expanded, the stress between the core and the below

face-sheet increased rapidly, which lead to the debonding between the core and the below face-sheet.

The load-displacement curve of TB-T-1 (in Fig. 14) dropped rapidly after the debonding occurrence at

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the peak load point, but the curve of TB-T-FE dropped slowly with the ‘tie’ constraint. In addition, the
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simulated bending stiffness was larger than experimental ones, the cause of the inconsistency was

similar to the compressive result discussed before.

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Fig. 15 showing the cross-section images of specimens during the three-point bending process

with tubes in sandwich beam visible, and the distribution of Mises stress S can be seen clearly. For
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empty sandwich beam, the Mises stress S concentrated on top loading bar with a small region, and such
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stress concentration causing local collapse occurred (as Fig. 13 (a) shown). By contrast, the region of

stress concentration was expanded for the tube-reinforced sandwich beam which led to a more
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complicated failure mode, along with transverse cracking.

4.2.3 Structure optimization

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As shown in Fig. 16, the tube-reinforced sandwich beam with different tube wall thickness (Tt
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=0.5mm, 0.3mm, and 0.1mm) were also studied numerically. The load-displacement curve

(TB-T-FE-0.1mm) almost coincided with the curve of the empty honeycomb sandwich beam (TB-FE).

The loading of TB-T-FE-0.3mm was higher than TB-FE but lower than TB-T-FE-0.5mm. As discussed

before, for the TB-T-FE-0.5mm, the debonding occurred between the honeycomb and the below

face-sheet in the experiment. This issue may be solved by using the thinner tubes, but loading will be

lower corresponding.

4.3 Comparison with competitive core designs

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The uniaxial compressive strength (  peak ) and energy absorption capacities per unit mass (Wm) of
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both empty and tube-reinforced honeycombs were compared with several competitive core designs

[43]. As shown in Fig. 17, the present newly developed tube-reinforced honeycomb was competitive

compared with empty honeycomb, especially energy absorption. Compared with other competitive

cores, such as pyramidal which have been demonstrated have advantages in load carrying applications

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[46-47], the present result is more advantageous. With future geometric optimization design, the

present tube-reinforced honeycomb structure is suggested to be more competitive.

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5. Conclusions

Metallic tubes were used to increase the mechanical performances of aluminum honeycombs and

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its sandwich structures, and formed tube-reinforced honeycomb. The compressive and three-point

bending responses of the novel tube-reinforced honeycomb was studied experimentally and

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numerically. The results are as follows:
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ⅰ) Compared with empty honeycomb, the normalized peak stress, elastic modulus E and energy

absorption per unit mass (SEA) of tube-reinforced honeycomb can be increased by 16%, 26% and 73%
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respectively due to aluminum tube filling. The results almost equal to the sum of aluminum honeycomb

and tube which were tested separately.

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ⅱ) The normalized peak bending load and stiffness of the tube-reinforced sandwich beam were
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increased by 42% and 62% respectively compared with the empty sandwich beam. The numerical

results indicated that the tube filling changed the stress distribution and expanded the stress

concentration region which resulted in the transformation of bending failure mode, from local to whole
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collapse accompany with transverse cracking.

ⅲ) With the increase of compressive and bending resistance performances, the novel
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tube-reinforced honeycomb is competitive in load carrying and energy absorption applications.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11702326,

11802221), Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M633493), Postdoctoral Scientific

Research Project of Shaanxi Province (2017BSHYDZZ74), Open Project Program of the State Key

Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures (SV2016-KF-22), Xi’an Jiaotong

University, Pre-research project of Department of Basic Sciences(YNJC19070602), Air Force

Engineering University.
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Table 1

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Parameters of the specimens for compression tests, where length (Lc), width (Wc), height (Hc) and
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density (ρc) of specimens are showing.

Specimens Type ρc (Kg/m3) Lc (mm) Wc (mm) Hc (mm)

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CE-1 Empty 70.63 40 40 20

CE-2 Empty 71.03 40 40 20

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CT-1 Tube-reinforced 99.38 40 40 20

CT-2 Tube-reinforced 98.75 40 40 20

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Table 2

Parameters of sandwich structures for three-point bending tests, where length (Ltb), width (Wtb), height

(Htb) and average density (ρtb) of both empty (TB) and tube-reinforced (TB-T) sandwich beams are

showing respectively. With fixed face-sheets thickness (Tf =1mm).

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Specimens Type ρtb (Kg/m3) Ltb (mm) Wtb (mm) Htb (mm)

TB-1 Empty 355 220 40 22

TB-2 Empty 364 220 40 22

TB-T-1 Tube-reinforced 414 220 40 22

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TB-T-2 Tube-reinforced 414 220 40 22

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Table 3

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Summary of the experimental and numerical compressive strength  peak , elastic modulus E, energy
c
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absorption per unit volume Wv and per unit mass Wm of the specimens. The experimental results are the
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averaged measurements of specimens in Table 1.

c  peak
c
 peak
c
E Wv (KJ/m3) Wm
Compressive
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(Kg/m3 ) (MPa) ( Al 3003 c /  Al 3003 ) (MPa) (KJ /Kg)

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CE 70.82 3.38 0.70 509 618.29 8.66

CE-FE 70.94 3.63 0.76 1384 751.74 10.60

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CT 99.06 5.47 0.81 640 1481.10 14.95

CT-FE 93.39 5.18 0.82 2196 1534.93 16.44

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Table 4

Summary of the experimental and numerical results of three-point bending. The experimental results

are the averaged measurements of specimens in Table 2. The stiffness indicates the slope of
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load-displacement curve at elastic stage.

 tb Fpeak Stiffness
Three-point bending Fpeak (N) δpeak (mm)
(Kg/m ) 3
(  tb /  Al 3003 ) (KN/mm)
TB
360 1399 10609 0.90 2.03
(experimental)
TB-FE
311 1471 12903 0.88 3.56
(numerical)

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TB-T
414 2290 15101 0.99 3.28
(experimental)
TB-T-FE

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329 2437 20221 1.08 3.61
(numerical)

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(a) Empty honeycomb (b) Tube-reinforced honeycomb
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(c) Empty sandwich beam

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(d) Tube-reinforced sandwich beam

Fig. 1. Schematic and parameter of empty and tube-reinforced honeycomb design.
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(a) Empty honeycomb (b)Tube-reinforced honeycomb (c) Tube
Fig. 2. Images of specimens for compression tests.

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Fig. 3. Images of sandwich beam for three-point bending test. Careful treatments of specimens during
fabrication can be seen on the left.
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Fig. 4. Experimental set-up for compression and three-point bending tests (Instron 3382).

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(a) Compression tests (b) Three-point bending tests

Fig. 5. FE models for compression and three-point bending tests.

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Fig. 6. Nominal stress versus strain curves of empty honeycomb (CE-1), tube-reinforced honeycomb

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(CT-1) and aluminum tube under uniaxial compression.

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Final

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(a) CE-1 (b) CT-1 (c) Tube
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Fig. 7. Experimental and simulated images illustrating the deformation history at the selected points
marked in Fig. 6.
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Fig. 8. Energy absorption per unit volume (Wv) and per unit mass (Wm) of CE and CT specimens.
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Fig. 9. Stress versus strain curves comparing with the experiment results under compression tests.

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(a) CE-FE (b) CT-FE

Fig. 10. Simulated images of specimens at cross section under compression at selected points (specific
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strain).

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Fig. 11. FE simulated stress-strain curves with different tube thickness under compression tests.

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Fig. 12. Load-displacement curves of specimens under three-point bending load.

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(a) TB-1
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(b) TB-T-1
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Fig. 13. Photographs illustrating the deformation history at selected points marked in Fig. 12.
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Fig. 14. Comparison of FE simulated load-displacement curves with experiment results of specimens
under three-point bending load.
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(a) TB-FE (b) TB-T-FE
Fig. 15. Simulated cross section images of specimens during three-point bending process under different
bending displacement.

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Fig. 16 . FE simulated load-displacement curves with different tube thickness under three-point
bending load.
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(a) Compressive strength (b) Specific energy absorption

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Fig. 17. Compressive strength and energy absorption comparison of present honeycomb and
tube-reinforced honeycomb with other competitive core designs [43].

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