OBJECTIVES OF THE

STUDY
•To evaluate the energy absorbed
Experimental
Finite Element Analysis

•Comparison of the results.

 INTRODUCTION
• Aluminium honeycomb is a structure made of
hexagonal foil cells.
• It derives it’s name from its close resemblance to a
bee honeycomb.
• Materials with high strength skins and low density
core material are used.
• Honeycomb is a typical cellular structure which has
been extensively used as energy absorbers to resist
external loads.
 Pro’s of Honeycomb structures
• Considerable rigidity in shear.
• High crushing stress.
• Almost constant crushing force.
• Long stroke.
• Low weight.
• Relative insensitivity to local loss of stability.
• Minimization of the amount of material used.
HONEYCOMB TERMINOLOGY
 DIMENSIONS

• Length = 75mm
• Width = 75mm
• Thickness = 50mm
• Cell size = 6.3mm
• Material used = Aluminium 3003 alloy
 SOFTWARES USED
HYPER MESH
• Altair Hyper mesh is a high-performance finite
element pre- and post-processor for major finite
element solvers.
Benefits
• High speed, High Quality Meshing.
• Increases End-User Modelling Efficiency.
• Reduces training time and cost through elimination of
Redundant Tools.
• Closes the loop between CAD and FEA.
LS-DYNA
• It is a general-purpose finite element program
capable of simulating complex real world
problems.
• It is used by the automobile, aerospace,
construction, military, manufacturing, and
bioengineering industries.
Uses of LS-DYNA
• Automotive crash (deformation of chassis).
• Explosions (underwater Naval mine).
• Manufacturing (sheet metal stamping).
 OUT OF PLANE COMPRESSION

•Out-of-plane direction refers to the direction along the

cell axis, parallel to the thickness of the honeycomb.
•Honeycombs are much stiffer and stronger when loaded
along the cell axis.
•The initial linear-elastic deformation involves, significant
axial or shear deformations of the cell walls.
 BENEFITS

• High speed, High Quality Meshing.

• Increases End-User Modelling Efficiency.
• Reduces training time and cost through elimination of
Redundant Tools.
• Reduces Model Assembly time.
• Closes the loop between CAD and FEA.
 IMPORTANCE OF ENERGY
ABSORPTION
• Collisions between objects giving rise to suddenly acting loads
are common in everyday life.
• Collisions are either accidental or intentional-whether they are
desirable or not.
• It is possible to try and reduce the possibility of unwanted
collisions but impossible to prevent them.
 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

• To evaluate the energy absorbed by the

aluminium honeycomb in out-of-plane
configuration.

• To evaluate the specific energy absorbed by

the aluminium honeycomb in out-of-plane
configuration.
 DEFORMATION ZONES

Zone 1
• Stiff and elastic zone
• Deformation is symmetric about their axes
• Deformation is uniform through the length of the
specimen
• Barreling of the specimen was observed
• Crushing of cells usually occurred at top end at an
average load of 12 kN.
Zone 2:
• This represents the progressive folding collapse
• Characterized by the fluctuations of little amplitude
• Amplitude of the fluctuations is higher initially
• Deformation front was continued for 80% of the
specimen volume
Zone 3:
• This is the solid phase compression of a
perforated plate
• The load increased very rapidly indicating the
densification of the specimen
 SPECIFICATIONS OF
ALUMINIUM HONEYCOMB

MATERIAL SPECIFICATIONS

Shape : Hexagonal

Material : 3003—Aluminium

Aluminium-Honeycomb Foil thickness : 0.068 mm

Core density : 85-100 kg/m3

Cell size : 6.3 mm

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

• The specimen was placed in between the flat platens

of the Universal Testing Machine.
• Uni-axial compressive loading is applied at a
deformation rate of 1mm/min.
• The energy absorbing capacity of aluminium
honeycomb was calculated from the Load-
Displacement curve.
DEFORMATION ZONES
COMPARISONS OF LOAD-
DISPLACEMENT CURVES
• HC13-2 :433.331 J
• HC13-3 :472.411 J
• HC13-4 :452.214 J
• HC13-6 :453.638 J
 Energy absorbed by each specimen in all the cases
was found to be approximately same.
 Average energy absorbed was 452.261 J
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS INCORPORATED IN FE MODEL

The specimens were simply rested on a rigid surface

• Contact condition used:
• Contact_Automatic_General

• Boundary Conditions:
• The specimen was rested on a rigid surface (base plate).
• Base plate fixed in all directions.
• The impactor plate is constrained to move only in Z-direction.
• The velocity input of 1000 mm/sec is given through the
command - Load collector.
 STEPS INVOLVED IN HONEYCOMB
MODELING AND ANALYSIS
1. A unit cell of specified dimensions was created in “Catia-V5”.
2. This regular hexagon shaped unit cell was then
duplicated along x and y axis to get the quarter part of
the final model.

3. The Catia model was converted from ‘.CATPart’ to

‘.igs’ format.

4. This file was imported to ‘Hypermesh’ software.

5. The mid-surface of the entire quarter part was
extracted.
6. By using ‘Reflect’ command quarter part was duplicated to get
the model of dimensions 75x75x50.

7. The model was meshed with mesh density of 2.5 using quad
elements.
8. The requisite conditions of the model were specified
through the Property, Material and Component
collectors.
9. The Impactor and Base were modeled with required properties by
following same procedure.
10. The Quasi-static velocity was imparted to the impactor using
‘load collectors’ and ‘XY plots’.
11. The impactor was constrained in all directions except
along axis of the cell and base was constrained in all
directions.
12. The Automatic General type of contact was given at
the model-impactor interface and model-base interface.
13. In control cards the termination time was given as 40ms,
SECFORC as 0.1ms, NODOUT as 0.1ms and MATSUM as 0.1ms.
14. This file was exported as ‘.dyn’ format.

15. This dyna file was imported in Ls-Dyna and was analysed
and executed.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS