Comparative failure behavior of metal honeycomb structures under bending: A finite element-based study

In recent years, metallic honeycomb structures have been popularly researched due to their significant influence on structural strength and rigidity. In this study, the bending response of multi-cellular beam structures with four (hollow tube (HT), square (Squ), hexagonal (Hex) and octagonal (Octa) and Re-entrant honeycomb (ReH)) cross-sections are numerically investigated. Furthermore, using the nonlinear finite element codes LS-DYNA, a comparative study of the energy absorption characteristics between structures with auxetic and non-auxetic beam cross-sections was carried out. The ReH specimen used in the finite element (FE) validation study was manufactured using the Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) additive manufacturing method to accommodate the complex geometries. FE method analysis are carried out to systematically investigate the influence of the geometrical configuration and identify the failure mechanism on the bending performance. The results show that in the HT structure, an upper corner fracture occurred because of folding in the contact area of the indenter. For Squ, Hex and Octa beam structures, failure occurs due to localized stress caused by buckling in the cell walls. On the other hand, the cross-sectional area of ReH structure tends to shrink under the bending load. Thus, the influence of the local buckling effect could be minimized despite the high displacements. This situation has ensured that the reduction in the moment of inertia of the cross-section remains limited. Furthermore, the specific energy absorption (SEA) capacity of the ReH beam significantly performed 11.3, 3.76 and 1.77 times better than the multi-cellular beam with Hex, Squ and Octa honeycomb beams, respectively. Accordingly, it was understood that the failure of the re-entrant cross-section under severe deformation was more limited than the others. This study is expected to contribute to evaluating the load-bearing capacity of metallic honeycomb structures, including understanding the failure process.