Numerical Simulation Study On Mechanical Behavior Of Honeycomb Aluminum Compression Penetration

Honeycomb material is a kind of new structural and functional composite, which is widely used in the automotive industry, aerospace, construction, packaging and other fields. Because of its low relative density, high strength and high energy absorption capability, honeycomb material is frequently made into lightweight structures and energy absorption devices.The shell element finite element model and solid element finite element model of aluminum honeycombs were established by ANSYS/LS-DYNA in this paper. Firstly, the shell element model was established based on the specific structure characteristics of aluminum honeycombs. The uniaxial compression in three directions of aluminum honeycombs was simulated using this shell element model. A detailed analysis were given about the influences of honeycomb cell wall thickness and impact velocity on the deformation mode, the plateau stress and energy absorption. The simulation results showed that the honeycomb cell wall thickness and impact velocity had a small effect on the deformation mode in the out-plane direction of aluminum honeycombs and the gradual collapse was the main deformation mode. However, the impact velocity had a strong effect on the deformation mode in the in-plane direction. The in-plane deformation was manifested as quasi-static mode at low speed, transition mode at intermediate speed and impact mode at high speed. The plateau stress and energy absorption of aluminum honeycombs increased with the cell wall thickness and impact velocity.Then, the solid element model was established using the 126th material in the LS-DYNA material library. The parameters and the curves required by the material constitutive were obtained by theoretical analysis and simulation using the shell element model. The uniaxial compression in three directions of aluminum honeycombs was simulated using this solid element model and the stress strain curves and energy absorption curves were consistent with the shell element model. Meanwhile, the computational scales and computational time were decreased and the efficiency of calculation was improved.Finally, a test about the projectile penetration into aluminum honeycomb was simulated using the shell element model and solid element model. The simulation results agreed well with the test.