COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH TO WEIGHT RATIO OPTIMIZATION OF COMPOSITE HONEYCOMB THROUGH ADDITION OF INTERNAL REINFORCEMENTS

This work focuses on the compressive strength to weight ratio optimization of reinforced composite honeycomb materials for sandwich panel construction. Currently, metallic honeycomb has densities up to four times that of composite honeycomb, and compressive strengths up to ten times greater. The objective of this research is to eliminate the use of aluminum honeycomb in aircraft structures by replacing them with reinforced composite honeycomb with equivalent or better compressive strength. In order to evaluate reinforced composite alternatives, a finite element model was developed to analyze many reinforcement configurations. The analysis was extremely non-linear and required significant work to develop a model that would successfully converge to a solution for the many different reinforced configurations to be analyzed. A parametric study showed that the crushing resistance of the reinforcement governed the overall compressive strength to weight ratio of the reinforced composite honeycomb. It was found that the compressive strength to weight ratio of reinforced composite honeycomb can be 22% higher than that of aluminum honeycomb of comparable weight.