Aluminum honeycomb sandwich for protective structures of earth moving machines

The design and the assembly of the vehicles subjected to the risk of crushing from falling objects have to consider such danger and provide the operators with suitable safety systems. Generally, falling object protective structures for earth moving machines consist of vertical elements, connected by transversal elements, covered by a roof. The latter has the aim to protect the operators from falling objects and it is usually made of a steel skeleton with a metal plate. In this study, sandwich panels were proposed as technical solution for the impact protection from falling objects in earth moving machines. A very light and cheap aluminum honeycomb core (AA3003 alloy and cell size = 19 mm) was considered as design solution and was subjected to static and dynamic full-scale tests. The results were analysed according to the performance requirements of ISO 3449 standard. The experimental results confirmed that the honeycomb structures are well suitable for designing absorber devices in vehicles protective structures in order to ensure occupant safety.