Research on the cushioning and energy absorption characteristics of gradient sinusoidal negative Poisson’s ratio honeycomb structures

Abstract

In this study, we designed improved cellular materials (CMs) with good energy absorption capacities, proposing new types of CMs with negative Poisson ratios by introducing sinusoidal cell walls and three different gradients. The amplitude of the sinusoidal wall, cell periodicity, and cell wall thickness were modulated in three layers across the structure (denoted as AG-CM, PG-CM, and WTG-CM, respectively). The influence of the different gradient parameters on the dynamic response of the CMs was analysed. The finite element method was used to explicitly simulate the deformation behaviour, dynamic shock stress, and energy absorption characteristics of the proposed structures at different impact speeds and directions. The initial peak stress in the face of the impact of the CM with a reasonable gradient setting was lower than that of the non-gradient CM. In contrast, its energy absorption was higher than that of the non-gradient CM. WTG-CM exhibited the highest energy absorption for a low-speed impact (7 m/s). For a medium and high speed impacts (35 m/s and 70 m/s), AG-CM exhibited the highest energy absorption in the face of positive gradient impact, whereas WTG-CM exhibited the highest energy-absorbing energy when impacting against the gradient. Under similar impact rates, the energy absorption energy of the different CMs varied by 32.1%. For the same CM, the maximum difference in absorption energy between shock modes was 33.8%.

Keywords:

• Negative Poisson ratio
• gradient honeycomb
• in-plane impact
• energy absorption

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Baoqing Zhang, Professor of the Changchun University of Science and Technology, for his help in interpreting the significance of the software and technology data. The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Yuhua Song and Dr. Hui Liu, for their help in interpreting the significance of the results of this study. The funding from the Science and Technology Research project of the Education Department of the Jilin Province and the Jilin Provincial Natural Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualisation, Fengde Liu and Baoqing Zhang; methodology, Yuhua Song; software, Yuhua Song; validation, Fengde Liu and Baoqing Zhang; formal analysis, Yuhua Song; investigation, Yuhua Song; resources, Hui Liu; data curation, Yuhua Song; writing—original draft preparation, Yuhua Song; writing—review and editing, Fengde Liu; visualisation, Fengde Liu; supervision, Baoqing Zhang; project administration, Fengde Liu; funding acquisition, Baoqing Zhang. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Science and Technology Research project of the Education Department of the Jilin Province, grant number JJKH20220733KJ. This research was also funded by the Jilin Provincial Natural Science Foundation, grant number YDZJ202201ZYTS537.