Free Vibrations and Impact Resistance of a Functionally Graded Honeycomb Sandwich Plate

The functionally graded honeycomb has the characteristic of light weight, low density, high impact resistance, noise reduction, and energy absorption as a kind of new composite inhomogeneous materials. It has the advantages of both functionally graded materials and honeycombs. In this paper, a functionally graded honeycomb sandwich plate with functionally graded distributed along the thickness of the plate is constructed. The equivalent elastic parameters of the functionally graded honeycomb core are given. Based on Reddy’s higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) and Hamilton’s principle, the governing partial differential equation of motion is derived under four simply supported boundary conditions. The natural frequencies of the graded honeycomb sandwich plate are obtained by both the Navier method from the governing equation and the finite element model. The results obtained by the two methods are consistent. Based on this, the effects of parameters and graded on the natural frequencies of the functionally graded honeycomb sandwich plate are studied. Finally, the dynamic responses of the functionally graded honeycomb sandwich plate under low-speed impacts are studied. The results obtained in this paper will provide a theoretical basis for further study of the complex dynamics of functionally graded honeycomb structures.

Lightweight Design of Solar UAV Wing Structures Based on Sandwich Equivalent Theory

In this paper, an equivalent method based on sandwich plate is deduced, and the equivalent parameters of the honeycomb plate are obtained. With these equivalent parameters, the honeycomb plate equivalent FEM simulation model and actual model are established, and three-point bending simulations of the equivalent model and the actual model three-point are completed. Then, a three-point bending test of a real honeycomb sandwich panel was performed for comparison with the simulation result, which agrees well with the test result and shows the effectiveness of the equivalent model. The equivalent model of honeycomb sandwich plate win ribs is established for structural topology optimization and wing static simulation analysis, and a prototype of the solar UAV is made for flight testing according to the topology optimization results. The simulation and prototype test results indicated that the sandwich equivalent theory is suitable for the lightweight design of solar UAV wing structures with honeycomb sandwich plate materials, and this method can provide a reference for the same type of wing structure design.

Vibration and Flutter of a Honeycomb Sandwich Plate with Zero Poisson’s Ratio

A honeycomb is a kind of excellent lightweight structure and a honeycomb sandwich plate with zero Poisson’s ratio (ZPR) core is used widely in morphing structures. In this paper, a sandwich plate composed of a honeycomb core with zero Poisson’s ratio is analyzed for free vibrations and flutter under supersonic airflows. The equivalent elastic parametric formulas of the honeycomb core for zero Poisson’s ratio are proposed. The models are compared for their natural frequencies by theoretical and finite element methods respectively, which verifies the validity of the equivalent elastic parametric formulas and the model for the honeycomb sandwich plate with zero Poisson’s ratio. The influence of the geometric parameters of the honeycomb plate on the vibration frequencies is obtained. Three kinds of honeycomb cores, namely, regular hexagon, auxetic and hybrid with zero Poisson’s ratio, are compared through natural frequencies of the sandwich plate. It is found that the frequency of the zero Poisson’s ratio honeycomb sandwich plate is the second one when the other parameters are the same. The flutter of the honeycomb plate is analyzed by using the first order piston theory under supersonic flows. The critical flutter velocity of the plate is obtained, and the influence of geometric parameters of the honeycomb plate on the critical flutter velocities is obtained.