Combined effects of relative density and material distribution on the mechanical properties of metallic honeycombs

This paper presents the combined effects of relative density and material distribution on the elastic constants and the yield strengths of metallic honeycombs. Periodic regular hexagonal cell is employed as the structural model. Cell wall bending, transverse shear and axial stretching/compression are taken as the deformation mechanisms in the analysis. Closed-form solutions for the yield strengths and all the five independent elastic constants are obtained for honeycombs with cell walls of uniform thickness. For honeycombs with cell walls of non-uniform thickness, the closed-form solutions would be too lengthy to use in practical applications. We instead provide numerical results to show the combined effects of relative density and material distribution on the initial and full yield strengths and all the five independent elastic constants of metallic honeycombs. The results can serve as a guide for the optimal design of metallic honeycombs.