Ripplecomb: A novel triangular tube reinforced corrugated honeycomb for energy absorption

A novel triangular tube reinforced corrugated honeycomb, which is professionally termed as ripplecomb, is proposed by integrating triangular tubes with sine-wave corrugated plates to construct a quasi-hexagon honeycomb structure. The mechanical performance of ripplecomb under quasi-static out-of-plane uniform compression is investigated based on three-dimensional finite element method. Combining the eccentricity factor, amplitude factor with the basic folding mechanism, an analytical approach based on rigid perfectly plastic model is applied to predict the mean impact force of the ripplecomb under quasi-static axial crushing loading theoretically. The mean crushing force obtained from analytical model is well consistent with those of the simulation. Besides, parametric investigations are carried out to explore the influence of the wave amplitude, wave number and cell-wall thickness on the out-of-plane crashworthiness performance of the ripplecomb structure. The numerical results demonstrate that the ripplecomb structure can improve the specific energy absorption as well as lowering the initial peak force compared with the traditional hexagonal honeycomb structure. This work indicates that the proposed hybrid ripplecomb structure exhibits superiority in energy absorption as crushing protection structures in comparison with conventional lightweight constructions with identical mass.