Design, Modelling and Manufacturing aspects of Honeycomb Sandwich Structures: A Review

Abstract

Honeycomb sandwich panels are widely used in automobile, aerospace and space structures due to unique characteristics like high strength to weight ratio and High stiffness. Honeycomb sandwich panels consist of honeycomb core made of either metal or thin paper like materials. Core is sandwiched with metallic or composite face sheets. Core gives high compressive strength in T direction whereas face sheet gives shear strength in T and W direction. Compressive strength of sandwich panel depends on foil thickness of honeycomb core, cell size, thickness of core in T direction and face sheet thickness. For nearly same weight honeycomb sandwich panels can give up to 30 times higher stiffness than metallic sheets. Face sheets of the sandwich structure facilitate mounting of the instruments as core has very high volume fraction of cavity and hence cannot hold fasteners alone.Modelling of Honeycomb sandwich structures with actual cell configuration is difficult and time consuming. Hence sandwich structure is generally modeled as equivalent homogeneous structure. This paper gives an insight about design, simulation and manufacturing aspects of honeycomb sandwich structures.