ABSTRACT
Metal honeycomb structures have been applied in a wide range of fields, including aerospace, marine and railway engineering. As the energy absorber, the honeycomb structure is expected to absorb as much impact energy as possible per unit mass or volume, especially when used in aerospace system. However, designing optimization using non-linear tools for evaluating the objectives and constraints is expensive and time consuming. In the design process, statistical methods are incorporated to enhance the eects of various parameters in order to optimize the crashworthiness characteristics. Therefore, meta-models are developed as surrogates of the expensive simulation processes of model approximation, optimization and space exploration design[1]. Kurtaran et al.[2] used response surface methodology (RSM) to construct approximations and applied the approximate optimization method to solve the crashworthiness design problems. The design of experiments (DOE) of the factorial design and D-optimal criterion techniques was employed to construct the response surface (RS) by Hou et al. [3] in the crashworthiness of the regular hexagonal thin-walled columns for dierent sectional profiles. S. S. Esfahlani et al. [4] identified the performance of various meta-models to optimize the energy absorption characteristic of hexagonal honeycomb. Li et al. [5] found the most optimized alternative square honeycomb structure via employing the RSM in crashworthiness design.
