An insight from nature: honeycomb pattern in advanced structural design for impact energy absorption

The ability of a vehicle to protect its occupants from serious injuries in the event of a collision is defined as crashworthiness. The proper design of lightweight energy absorption components is a topic of interest because it can enhance the occupant's safety and lead to less fuel consumption and gas emission. Honeycomb structures are known to have excellent mechanical performances, which are mainly due to the configurations of the unit cell. Thus, they have attracted attention in the field of automobiles, railway vehicles, etc. In the present work, the criteria of crashworthiness as well as the nature-bioinspired cellular structures are first introduced. Then, the various classifications of advanced honeycomb design, including graded, hierarchical, and sandwich panel-based honeycomb structures, are established and discussed with a focus on the advantageous effect of various designs on the crashworthiness of honeycomb-based structures. Finally, the importance of potential design to enhance the crashworthy performance of honeycomb structures together with the future challenges is summarized. This work provides a good understanding of architectural design for a new generation of advanced honeycomb-based structures with efficient energy-absorbing properties. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

Crashworthiness is the ability of a vehicle to protect its occupants from serious injuries in a collision. The proper design of lightweight energy absorption components, such as honeycomb structures, can enhance occupant safety and reduce fuel consumption. This work introduces the criteria of crashworthiness and nature-bioinspired cellular structures, discusses various classifications of advanced honeycomb design, and emphasizes the advantageous effect of different designs on crashworthiness. The importance of potential design to enhance the crashworthy performance of honeycomb structures is summarized, providing a good understanding for the architectural design of advanced honeycomb-based structures.