Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Experimental investigation on impact and bending properties of a novel

dactyl-inspired sandwich honeycomb with carbon fiber
Qigang Han a,b,⇑, Hanlin Qin a, Zhanhang Liu c, Zhiwu Han d,⇑, Junqiu Zhang d, Shichao Niu d,
Wenqiang Zhang a, Yanbiao Sun a, Shaoqian Shi a
a
Roll Forging Research Institute, School of Materials Science and Engineering (Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education), Jilin University, Changchun 130022,
PR China
b
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, PR China
c
College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, PR China
d
Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University, Changchun 130022, Jilin, PR China

h i g h l i g h t s

 Based on periodic region of dactyl club.

 The dactyl-inspired structure has excellent mechanical properties.
 It can be applied to many fields.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The periodic region of mantis shrimp’s dactyl club, composed of the helicoidal arrangement of mineral-
Received 6 August 2019 ized fiber, has excellent energy absorption and damage tolerance. This structure, inspired by the dactyl
Received in revised form 6 April 2020 club, has been proved effective to improve the mechanical properties of composites. In this paper, a novel
Accepted 10 April 2020
dactyl-inspired sandwich honeycomb (DSH) was fabricated with unidirectional carbon fiber and alu-
minum honeycomb based on the periodic region of the dactyl club. The DSH was compared with
plain-woven skin sandwich-structural honeycomb (PSH) and unidirectional skin sandwich-structural
Keywords:
honeycomb (USH) in tests of impact and bending. As a result, the average impact contact force of DSH
Dactyl-inspired
Mechanical properties
was 3514.6 N, which was increased by 60.9% and 106.0% compared with PSH (2184.7 N) and USH
Destruction mechanism (1705.8 N), respectively. The bending energy absorption of DSH was 29556.5 N
mm, which was increased
Carbon fiber by 278.3% and 115.4% compared with PSH (7812.2 N
mm) and USH (13719.6 N
mm), respectively. The
Honeycomb core results exhibited that the quasi-isotropic helicoidal arrangement of carbon fiber was an effective way
to improve the impact resistance and bending energy absorption of DSH.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction face-sheet materials to decrease the weight by using many differ-

Honeycomb is a miraculous product of nature with huge
mechanical potential, the inspiration of which is gained by the
hexagonal nest of the bee. Due to its outstanding absorbed energy
properties, impact resistance and lightweight, honeycomb are not
only applied for airplanes and ships, but also subway, automobile,
and buildings. Traditional honeycomb is made by the all-
aluminum sandwich panel, and currently, researchers change its
⇑ Corresponding authors at: Roll Forging Research Institute, School of Materials
Science and Engineering (Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of
Education), Jilin University, Changchun 130022, PR China (Q. Han).
E-mail addresses: hanqg@jlu.edu.cn (Q. Han), zwhan@jlu.edu.cn (Z. Han).
ent materials, such as glass fiber and Kraft paper [1–7]. However,
the mechanical properties of the sandwich-structural composite
honeycomb are degraded as the weight decreases. There are also
some researchers conducting a series of experimental verifications
on the shape and height of the honeycomb core to improve the
mechanical properties of honeycomb [8–11]. However, due to high
cost, difficult processing, and the size limitation, it cannot be
widely used at present. In order to acquire the high properties of
honeycomb, researchers have implemented a lot of work. For
example, many researchers used aluminum honeycomb core to
combine with carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) face-sheets
to enhance the ability of crashworthiness and energy absorption
[9,12–15]. These studies confirm that the properties of CFRP are

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119161
0950-0618/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161
better than that of aluminum when they are used as a face-sheet of
honeycomb. So the fiber-reinforced honeycomb sandwich could be
widely used as the external and internal wall panels and ceiling of
the building, which reduce the damage to people and property
caused by the earthquake.
It is common knowledge that biological structure offers inspira-
tion for the design of novel composite materials due to the high
strength and damage-tolerance currently uncomparable by engi-
neering technologies [16]. Numerous composite structures with
excellent integrative performance can replicate the mechanical
properties of biological materials that have been created to fill gaps
in material-property charts, and these bio-inspired structures have
crucial implications in a wide range of engineering communities.
So researchers took inspiration from the woodpecker and they
use CFRP skin sheets sandwiching a dual-core employing rubber
and aluminum honeycomb materials to enhance the impact resis-
tance [17,18]. Meanwhile, there was also the biological structure of
beetle forewings, which was designed as the core of honeycomb
rather than a traditional honeycomb structure [19]. However,
researchers have previously focused on the effect of the various
core of honeycomb and seldom studied the effect of change of
face-sheet of honeycomb on its performance.
The dactyl club of mantis shrimp and exoskeletons of crus-
taceans can offer inspiration for the design of novel structural
materials, due to their outstanding lightweight, strength, and
toughness [16,20]. So many researchers manufactured the bio-
inspired helicoidal fiber-epoxy prepreg composites by mimicking
the periodic region of mantis shrimp and exoskeletons of crus-
taceans [21–25]. The impact resistance and flexural strength of
biomimetic structural fiber-reinforced composites materials are
obviously increased. It’s well known that honeycomb panels are
primarily tested for impact and bending tests in their application.
However, these biomimetic fiber-reinforced materials are not
applicable in the honeycomb. In this paper, we combined heli-
coidal carbon fiber-epoxy prepreg as the face-sheet with alu-
minum honeycomb as core to achieve a dactyl-inspired
sandwich-structural honeycomb (DSH). By studying the three con-
figurations, it can be concluded that the DSH has a more outstand-
ing performance on mechanical properties (bending and impact),
compared with plain-woven and unidirectional skin sandwich-
structural honeycomb (PSH and USH).
2. Dactyl-inspired model
This novel design of DSH is inspired by the periodic region of
the dactyl club of mantis shrimp, which is composed of helicoidal
arrangement through multiple periods of mineralized fiber were
shown in Fig. 1a–e [25]. The chitin fibers are arranged in a spiral
to form a period (orange), the periodic region exhibits a regular
pattern of laminations were shown in Fig. 1c and d. The schematic
of the chitin fiber arrangement in one period was shown in Fig. 1e.
It is the quasi-isotropic helicoidal arrangement of mineralized fiber
layers of the dactyl club that makes it have high impact resistance
and absorbed energy. Therefore, this provides the inspiration to
manufacture the face-sheet of DSH. The face-sheet is helicoidal
structural CFRP, which is made of 10 layers of unidirectional car-
bon fiber prepreg that are rotated 9 times with 20° rotation per
ply to obtain a complete period was shown in Fig. 1f (red). The
structure of quasi-isotropic helicoidal structure CFRP is equivalent
to the periodic region of the dactyl of mantis shrimp, which could
enhance the failure resistance of DSH. These elements placed in
each layer in the sequence were shown in Fig. 1f. The core of the
DSH is the aluminum honeycomb. There are two layers of the
epoxy film between the face-sheet and the core layer.
3. Materials and processing
3.1. Materials
A commonly used carbon fiber-reinforced composite material is
chosen as the face-sheet of honeycomb for verifying the mechani-
cal properties. The skin material used for DSH and USH is unidirec-
tional T300-carbon fiber epoxy prepreg, while PSH is carbon plain-
woven fiber. The A5052 aluminum alloy honeycomb material is
used for the core. The size and thickness of the core cells are
12.7 mm, 15 mm, and 2700 kg/m3 respectively, with Young’s mod-
ulus and Poisson’s ratio of 69 GPa and 0.33. The E-51 epoxy film
used in this article specifically has a surface weight of 250 g/m2,
a thickness of 0.2 mm, and tensile strength of 30 MPa.
3.2. Experimental procedure
First of all, the face-sheet of DSH was made of helicoidal structure
CFRP on both sides of the aluminum honeycomb core with a thick-
ness of 3 mm. The representative ‘‘180° stacking” was made of ten
layers of unidirectional CFRP, which were rotated 9 times around
the normal direction in sequence (0°/20°/40°/60°/80°/100°/120°/
140°/160°/180°), so each layer needed 20° rotation to complete a
single period of ‘‘180° stacking”. The assembled DSH was cured in
a compressive molding system under a constant curing pressure of
0.6 MPa. The curing temperature was firstly kept at 120 °C for 1 h.
To compare the properties of the DSH, it is necessary to manufacture
normal PSH and USH with CFRP without changing the angle of fiber
layers arrangement were shown in Fig. 2. The face-sheets of USH and
PSH are made of ten layers of unidirectional CFRP and five layers of
plain-woven CFRP, and their production process is consistent with
the DSH. The three kinds of sandwich-structural honeycomb (DSH,
PSH, and USH) core and each of the face-sheets have the same thick-
ness, 15 mm and 1.5 mm, respectively. They have a total thickness of
18 mm.
3.3. Impact methodology
The low-velocity drop weight impact tests were carried out by
9350 impact machine with a weight of 3 kg. The impact samples
were tested under 12.63 J impact energy according to ASTM D
7136 standard. Fig. 3a shows the configuration of the drop weight
impact test, and the impactor with a hemispherical nose 16 mm in
diameter was released in corresponding height to achieve the
required energy. The impact sample with a size of
100 mm  100 mm  18 mm was placed on a circular clamp with
a middle hole 70 mm in diameter as shown in Fig. 3b. The impact
tests were repeated up to five times at the same point in every
sample. We can analyze the impact behavior in terms of the con-
tact force and absorbed energy.
3.4. Bending methodology
Three-point flexural tests were performed by computer control
electronic universal testing machine (DNS-100). These three struc-
tural honeycombs were estimated for five samples at a constant
speed of 10 mm/min respectively, then took the average value.
We could also figure out the energy absorption that was calculated
as the area integral of the corresponding load-displacement curve
of specimens under bending tests. Geometry of bending samples
had a featured size of 125 mm  46 mm and had an average thick-
ness of 18 mm, and the support span distance was 70 mm. The
schematic diagram of the bending tests was shown in Fig. 4.
 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161 3

Fig. 1. (a) Photograph of the dactyl club of mantis shrimp [25], (b) the transverse of periodic region of dactyl club (blue) [25], (c) the SEM image of a fracture surface through
multiple periods, revealing a helicoidal organization of fibers [25], (d) the SEM image of a polished section through a single period [25], (e) the schematic of a consequence of
the helicoidal arrangement of aligned chitin fiber layers of a single period [25], (f) the geometric structure of the DSH and helicoidal face-sheet of the DSH (red).

Fig. 2. The fiber face-sheets structure of (a) PSH, (b) USH.

4. Results and analysis
4.1. Impact property
We can see the failure samples after impact tests of the PSH,
USH, and DSH, and the failure area was represented by red dashed
lines as shown in Fig. 5. When the face-sheets attained the maxi-
mum deformation before they began to fracture from extravagant
local bending and stretching, these could cause fiber breakage and
resin matrix cracking. Remarkably, as the further impact caused
the crack to propagate along the perimeter of the failure point on
the top-sheet, causing the cross-fiber breakage (0°/90° cracks),
and fiber separation and perforation in the impact area as shown
in Fig. 5a and b. DSH did not occur 0°/90° cracks due to its quasi-
isotropic structural surface sheet that could dissipate the effect of
impact force. Meanwhile, the partial delaminated strip would
appear on the bottom sheet of DSH. In comparison, the damaged
area of the bottom panel of PSH and DSH is 1017 mm2,
960 mm2, so the destruction of the DSH was smaller than that of
the PSH.
We can observe the interesting phenomenon that the peak force
of the 3rd or 4th impact test of these specimens reached the peak
force in the contact force-time curves as shown in Fig. 6. In the 1st
or 2nd impact test, cracks occurred in the resin matrix of the top-
sheet of PSH and DSH, while cracks in the resin matrix of the top-
sheet of USH caused fiber separation, and the honeycomb core
buckled locally. During the 3rd or 4th impact test, cross-fiber
breakage and perforation occurred on the top-sheet of PSH, and
fiber breakage and perforation similarly occurred on the top-
sheet of DSH, while the top-sheet of USH would break due to cracks
4 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161

Fig. 3. (a) The 9350 drop weight impact machine, (b) the impact sample on the ring support.

Fig. 4. The schematic diagram of bending tests.
propagating along the fiber direction [26–28]. During the subse-
quent impact process, the impactor passed through the top-sheet
and honeycomb core and it was in contact with the bottom-
sheet, which caused the cross-fiber breakage in the bottom-sheet
of PSH, fiber separation in the bottom-sheet of USH, and delami-
nated strip in the bottom-sheet of DSH. In short, it was cannot
ascribe this result to the surface sheet and honeycomb core alone
but rather the coordination between each layer during the impact
test [29,30]. So the frictional resistance between the impactor and
honeycomb core would enhance the resistant load. There were also
oscillations in the contact force-time curves that were mainly
caused by the degradation of the top face-sheet and core. The con-
tact force-time and absorbed energy-time curves indicated that the
stiffness of the specimen deteriorated as the number of impacts
increases. However, it was worth noting that the average contact
force and peak contact force of DSH was highest in the three kinds
of sandwich-structural honeycomb. Because of its dactyl-inspired
face-sheet possessed the excellent damage resistance than that of
PSH and USH. The average contact force of DSH was 3514.6 N,
which was increased by 60.9% and 106.0% compared with that of
PSH (2184.7 N) and USH (1705.8 N). The maximum peak force of
DSH was 4954.8 N, which was increased by 83.6% and 130.0% com-
pared with that of PSH (2699.1 N) and USH (2153.9 N).

Fig. 5. The failure samples after impact tests of (a) PSH, (b) USH, (c) DSH.
 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161 5

Fig. 6. The contact force-time and absorbed energy-time curves of (a) PSH, (b) USH, (c) DSH.

There was a platform in most absorbed energy-time curves
after the peak, which exhibited the amount of energy absorp-
tion by the PSH/USH/DSH. Since the geometry and molding
process of these structures were identical, their maximum
absorbed energy did not fluctuate too much. On the other side,
the DSH absorbed energy-time curves showed a gap between
the peak and the plateau representing the residual elastic
energy. The 2nd impact energy-time curve of the PSH/USH/
DSH exhibited that a sever damage had happened on the upper
sheet instead of occurring overall elastic deformation so that
the absorbed energy did not change after the peak. Due to
the dactyl-inspired structure of DSH, which made the face-
sheet possessed quasi-isotropic properties on the plane. These
exhibited that DSH was superior to PSH and USH in resisting
repeated impact.
4.2. Bending property
4.2.1. Bending test
The experimental results of bending tests on different sandwich
honeycomb were analyzed here. At first, the state before/after the
bending tests and load-displacement curve of samples are showed
in Figs. 7 and 8. In general, the load-displacement of both PSH, USH
and DSH could be divided into two different stages: pre-buckling
stage (point zero to B—before the first peak load), post-buckling
stage (point B to the end) as shown in Fig. 8. The initial stage of
the sandwich behaved linear-elastic (point zero to A). When local
indentation failure occurred, the stiffness of the structure reduced
(point A to B). The load would decrease or rebound due to the hon-
eycomb collapsed and sheets fractured (point B to the end). Fig. 8
showed two kinds of load-displacement curves. The PSH was a sin-
6 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161

Fig. 7. The bending tests of three kinds of sandwich-structural honeycomb, (a) PSH, (b) USH, (c) DSH.

29556.5 N
mm, which was increased by 278.3% and 115.4% com-

pared with that of PSH (7812.2 N
mm) and USH (13719.6 N
mm).
The point B of DSH was lower than that of PSH and USH. The
reason is that PSH and USH had sustained severe damages in the
bending tests, causing a higher bending load. Since the helical
structure of DSH would smooth the stiffness between adjacent
fiber layers and enhance the toughness. It is clear that the indenter
could not reach the bottom sheet of PSH and USH, while the bot-
tom sheet of DSH failed entirely. Therefore, from point B to D of
the DSH, the deformation of the top face-sheet led to localized
crash, shear and buckle of the aluminum core, eventually resulting
in the failure of the bottom face-sheet as shown in Fig. 7c. The per-
iod of point B to the end of DSH was longer than that of PSH and
USH, due to its helicoidal face sheet that enhanced the ability of
toughness. So the frictional resistance between the face sheet
and honeycomb core during the period of point B to D would help
DSH to enhance bending absorbed energy.

Fig. 8. The bending load-displacement curve of PSH, USH and DSH. 4.2.2. Microscopic analysis
In this section, we would further illustrate the bending failure
mechanisms of the DSH, and the SEM microscopic tests of these
three kinds of face-sheet at the fracture were analyzed and com-
gle peak curve, the load reached point B and dropped with the
pared as shown in Fig. 9. Fiber and resin matrix damage was the
crack propagated through transverse directly (black curve). The
primary damage mode during the bending tests as shown in
USH and DSH were respectively double and triple peak curves,
Fig. 10. In other words, as the bending tests proceeded, fiber break-
the load gradually dropped from point B and generated perforation
ages and delaminations increased to a large extent due to localized
hole or fiber separation in the top sheet. When the indenter
bending and stretching. The traditional manufacture of the PSH
reached the bottom sheet, the load would rise again to reach the
and USH made them possess anisotropic mechanical properties.
second peak (red and blue curves). The stiffness of DSH was almost
Therefore, the cracks of PSH and USH propagated from the upper
the same as that of the traditional PSH and is higher than that of
layer directly into the transverse section, resulting in the crack
USH. With regard to bending properties, the bending strength of
with almost no deflection as shown in Fig. 9a and b. However,
PSH, USH, and DSH corresponded to 1484.7 N, 1605.8 N and
the DSH had quasi-isotropic mechanical properties due to its
1433.2 N respectively. The energy absorption of DSH was
dactyl-inspired structure. Its helicoidal arrangement caused elastic

Fig. 9. The microscopic analysis of face-sheet at the fracture after bending tests of (a) PSH, (b) USH, (c) DSH.
 Q. Han et al. / Construction and Building Materials 253 (2020) 119161
Fig. 10. Failure mechanism of fiber damage.
modulus vibration and edge effects, deflecting between layers
along the crack propagation direction of the fiber instead of prop-
agating through the transverse section as shown in Fig. 9c [31,32].
Due to the damage model of the DSH could attain higher fracture
toughness values than the PSH and USH. The deviation of cracks
would enhance the ability of bending resistance, and delay the glo-
bal bending failure of the DSH.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, the novel DSH was manufactured with the heli-
coidal arrangement of unidirectional carbon fiber and aluminum
honeycomb. The DSH was tested by impact and bending tests to
examine the mechanical properties. The impact and bending prop-
erties of the DSH were explored, which obviously enhanced in
impact resistance and bending absorbed energy. The impact aver-
age contact force, as well as peak force of DSH, were higher than
that of PSH and USH. These could be attributed to the dactyl-
inspired structure. In the dactyl-inspired structure, CFRP could
deflect cracks between the layers instead of propagating through
the transverse section. Meanwhile, the DSH was also quasi-
isotropic mechanical properties in the plane. So the quasi-
isotropic properties and deviation of cracks of DSH could improve
the contact force and absorbed energy. The excellent mechanical
properties of DSH make it be a continual usage as energy absorp-
tion and impact resistance component.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Qigang Han: Conceptualization. Hanlin Qin: Writing - original
draft, Formal analysis. Zhanhang Liu: Visualization. Zhiwu Han:
Writing - review & editing. Junqiu Zhang: Writing - review & edit-
ing. Shichao Niu: Writing - review & editing. Wenqiang Zhang: .
Yanbiao Sun: Data curation. Shaoqian Shi: Data curation.
Declaration of Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the project of National Key R&D Pro-
gram of China (No. 2018YFA0703300), the National Science Foun-
dation of China (Project No. 51475207 and 51835006), the
7
Scientific and Technological Development Program of Changchun
City (Double Ten Project-19SS001), the Science and Technology
Development Program of Jilin Province (Technology R&D Project-
20190302021GX), the Industrial Technology Research and Devel-
opment Funds of Jilin Province (project No. 2019C041-1), and the
Jilin Province/Jilin University Co-construction Project–Funds for
New Materials (project No. SXGJSF2017-3).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119161.
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