Impact response of a novel sandwich structure with Kirigami modified corrugated core

A novel Kirigami modified corrugated core was proposed recently and its superior crushing performance under static loading was demonstrated. The proposed core is modified from the conventional corrugated core using Kirigami design, where a portion of the corrugated sheet is cut and then folded vertically. The vertical fold-ins of Kirigami modified corrugated core provide extra support and constraints to the adjacent un-folded cell walls, which increase the crushing resistance of a unit cell up to 10 times as previously studied. However, for a panel with multiple unit cells, its longitudinal flexural stiffness and impact resistance could be affected because of the fold-ins. This study investigates its performance and energy absorption under dynamic crushing through pendulum impact tests. Four configurations of panels, including laminated flat plate (FL), conventional corrugated (CC), Kirigami modified corrugated 1 (KC1) and Kirigami modified corrugated 2 (KC2) were tested. Different impact mass, velocities as well as impacting locations were considered. Impact force and rear face centre deflection were measured and compared to evaluate the impact performance of the panels. Superior impact resistance was demonstrated for proposed KC panel over CC panel under all impact scenarios.