ABSTRACT
Man made honeycombs that are broadly classified as cellular solids (Gibson & Ashby, 1988) have seen increased applications in aerospace structures. In particular, they are used in sandwich panels due to high stiffness-to-weight ratio and high transverse shear strength. Moreover, they are used as energy absorption devices, for example as crash barriers in the automotive industry owing to large energy dissipated during progressive localized collapse. The progressive localized collapse occurs over a fairly constant state of load called referred to as a plateau load. Honeycomb structures come in a variety of shapes having square, hexagonal or circular micro-section. They also are made up of a variety of lightweight materials such as metals, papers and polymers. Papka & Kyriakides (1998) and Chung & Waas (1999) have studied the static in-plane crush response of circular cell polycarbonate honeycomb. Moreover, Chung & Waas (2002a, b) have extended their studies to the dynamic regime. Recently, Chung & Waas (2008) have also modeled the circular honeycomb as a micro-polar solid, which is a higher order continuum type of description of these structures. The focus of this study is the energy absorption in circular cell polycarbonate honeycomb materials, with and without a soft filler material in the cells.
