Inplane crush response and energy absorption of circular cell honeycomb filled with elastomer

Compressive response and energy absorption of a composite honeycomb is studied. The base material is a circular cell hexagonally packed thin-wall polycarbonate honeycomb. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer is used as the filler material. Filled honeycomb specimens are quasi-statically loaded under controlled displacement along an inplane direction. Synergistic energy absorption in the filled specimen is observed, as its load response is much greater than the sum of the individual load responses of unfilled honeycomb and the filler material, respectively. Analysis of the crush response is conducted using two methods: (a) Digital image correlation (DIC) to monitor strains and displacement fields in the sample during initial stages of loading and in the vicinity of first failure. (b) Finite element (FE) modeling of the filled honeycomb using the ABAQUS/Explicit finite element code, accounting for the hyperelastic compression response of the PDMS filler. The smeared crack approach (SCA) is implemented in the honeycomb to simulate the longitudinal tearing of the cell wall and to subsequently capture the localization failure in the model. Good agreement between experiment and analysis is reported.