Lightweight aluminum honeycomb is a buffering and energy-absorbed structure against dynamic impact and explosion. Direct and indirect explosions with different equivalent explosive masses are applied to investigate the in-plane deformation characteristics and energy-absorbing distribution of aluminum honeycombs. Two finite element models of honeycombs, i.e., rigid plate-honeycomb-rigid plate (RP-H-RP) and honeycomb-rigid plate (H-RP) are created. The models indicate that there are three deformation modes in the X1 direction for the RP-H-RP, which are the overall response mode at low equivalent explosive masses, transitional response mode at medium equivalent explosive masses, and local response mode at large equivalent explosive masses, respectively. Meanwhile, the honeycombs exhibit two deformation modes in the X2 direction, i.e., the expansion mode at low equivalent explosive masses and local inner concave mode at large equivalent explosive masses, respectively. Interestingly, a counter-intuitive phenomenon is observed on the loaded boundary of the H-RP. Besides, the energy distribution and buffering capacity of different parts on the honeycomb models are discussed. In a unit cell, most of the energy is absorbed by the edges with an edge thickness of 0.04 mm while little energy is absorbed by the other bilateral edges. For the buffering capacity, the honeycomb in the X1 direction behaves better than that in the X2 direction.
Keywords: aluminum honeycomb; counter-intuitive behavior; deformation modes; energy distribution; shock wave.