High-velocity impact loading in honeycomb sandwich panels reinforced with polymer foam: a numerical approach study

The employment of lightweight structures is one of the most important goals in various industries. The lightweight sandwich panel is an excellent energy absorber and also a perfect way for decreasing the risk of impact. In this paper, a numerical study of high-velocity impact on honeycomb sandwich panels reinforced with polymer foam was performed. The results of numerical simulation are compared with the experimental findings. The numerical modeling of high-velocity penetration process was carried out using nonlinear explicit finite-element code, LS-DYNA. The aluminum honeycomb structure, unfilled honeycomb sandwich panel, and the sandwich panels filled with three types of polyurethane foam (foam 1: 56.94, foam 2: 108.65, and foam 3: 137.13 kg/m³) were investigated to demonstrate damage modes, ballistic limit velocity, absorbed energy, and specific energy absorption (SEA) capacity. The numerical ballistic limit velocity of sandwich panels, filled with three types of foam, was more than that of a bare honeycomb core and unfilled sandwich panel. In addition, the numerical results showed that the sandwich panel filled with the highest density foam could increase the strength of sandwich panel and the numerical specific energy absorption of this structure was 23% more than that of unfilled. Finally, the numerical results were in good agreement with experimental findings.