Design and fabrication of aluminum honeycomb structures based on origami technology

What is it about?

Aluminum alloy honeycomb structures were designed based on origami technology, and the specimens were fabricated by a new fabrication technology (i.e. a press and folding process). In folding process, a new folding device was successfully developed to achieve automatic fabrication of honeycomb structure. To prove the practicability of developed device, the honeycomb cores with claws were fabricated by this device, which were used to compare the mechanical properties with that bonded by common adhesive. The deformation behaviors and mechanical properties of honeycomb structures were investigated by the flatwise compressive test and three-point bending test. The load–displacement curve obtained at the room temperature showed that the load increased to a peak value and then tended rapidly to a constant. Besides, the deformation process approximately categorized into three zones, namely linear-elastic zone, plastic-plateau zone, and densification zone. The experimental results suggested that regardless of specimen type, the bending stiffness and compressive strengths were approximately 0.32 KN・m2 and 0.39 MPa, respectively; revealing the bonded method by aluminum claws did not dramatically affect the mechanical properties of honeycomb structure. Moreover, the elastic deformation of honeycomb structure was numerically studied by the finite element analysis.

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Why is it important?

In this work, strong and lightweight hexagonal honeycomb cores (i.e. core angles 120) were proposed by origami technology, more importantly, based on the design principle of origami technology, a claw was designed between the cell walls to fix, without any adhesive (shown as in Figure 3). Aluminum alloy honeycomb cores were manufactured by a new fabrication technology (i.e. a pressand folding process, which will be detailedly introduced in the experimental part). More importantly, a new folding device was successfully developed to achieve automatic fabrication of honeycomb core. The deformation behaviors and mechanical properties of honeycomb cores were investigated by three-point bending test and flatwise compressive test. Two type specimens were fabricated for deformation behavior and mechanical property investigation: one is that bonded by using common adhesive and another is that bonded by aluminum claws (patents 2014- 087816 and 2015-114459, Japan). In addition, finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out by using ANSYS 17.0 to evaluate deformation behavior of the designed honeycomb structures. It offers a novel technology to fabricate a strong and lightweight honeycomb core without any adhesive, which is expected to apply in transport industry and aerospace field.