Experimental Study of Energy Absorption of Fluid-Filled Honeycomb Structure

The work presented here is a continuation of the study performed in exploring the energy absorption characteristics of non-Newtonian fluid-filled regular hexagonal aluminum honeycomb structures. In the previous study, energy absorbing properties were investigated by using an air powered pneumatic ram, dynamic load cell, and a high speed camera. This study was conducted using a pneumatic ram which was designed to exploit only its kinetic energy during the impact. Experimental samples included an empty honeycomb sample and a filled sample as the filled samples showed the largest difference in energy absorption with respect to the empty samples in the previous study. Therefore, the filled samples were further investigated in this study by measuring the impact forces at the distal end as well as the damage on the impact end. Upon impact, the filled samples were able to reduce the damage area on impact end and were able to lower average and peak forces by 71.9% and 77.4% at the distal end as compared to the empty sample.