Crushing behaviour of aluminium honeycombs under impact loading

Understanding the crushing behaviour of honeycombs under dynamic loading is useful for crash simulations of vehicles and for design of impacting energ y absorbers. Available experimental techniques, however, are not always abl e to provide satisfactory precision for tests on honeycombs under impact lo ading. This paper presents a new application of the Split Hopkinson Pressur e Bar (SHPB) for testing honeycombs. Viscoelastic bars are used to improve the accuracy of measurements, and a generalised two-strain measurement meth od is applied to obtain a sufficient measurable maximum crush (up to 80%). Original experimental data (especially in the in-plane crushing directions) under impact loading are then reported. Differences between quasi-static a nd dynamic results are discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.