A concave four-arc honeycomb with enhanced stiffness and desirable negative Poisson’s effect

Abstract The conventional star-shaped honeycomb (CSSH) structure is inherently rich in mechanical properties. Based on the CSSH structure, the Poisson's ratio and Young’s modulus can be improved by adding the tip re-entrant angle (ISSH). In this paper, a new concave four-arc honeycomb (CFAH) structure is proposed by designing the straight rod as a curved rod and retaining the tip re-entrant angle from the ISSH structure. The Young's modulus, specific stiffness and Poisson’s ratio of CFAH structures are derived from Castigliano’s second theorem and Moore’s theorem. The theoretical results show good agreement with the numerical and experimental results. The results show that the normalized effective specific stiffness and normalized effective Young’s modulus of the CFAH structure are further improved by about 12.95% and 16.86%, respectively, compared with the ISSH structure, and more significant auxiliary effects are obtained. CFAH structures show good promise in aerospace, construction and other applications due to their enhanced mechanical property. Meanwhile, the present work provides guidance for the study of concave four-arc honeycomb structures.