honeycomb core

cushion curves

core

specific energy absorption

sandwich panels

low velocity

syntactic foam

low-velocity impact

composite sandwich

International Journal of Impact Engineering

• The combination of innovations in manufacturing and materials makes the development of compact and high-performance shock absorbers possible. • The manuscript analyses an engineering product starting from the design up to the manufacturing and to the testing phases. • The manuscript analyses an engineering product manufactured by machines which are the state of the art of additive manufacturing techniques. • Mechanical responses of different sandwich shock absorbers was compared and a minimum-mass configuration that maximises energy absorption was identified. • A correlation between numerical and experimental data was performed. The capability to guarantee passenger safety is a core feature of any transportation system. For this reason, a considerable effort is being committed, by researchers, to the study of innovative shock-absorbing devices able to increase the safety performance. According to this topic of great interest, this paper presents a numerical/experimental study on a new effective shock absorber concept achievable by means of the Additive Manufacturing technology. Indeed, additive technologies exhibit some fundamental advantages, such as the possibility to produce complex microstructures, with superior impact energy absorption capabilities, which cannot be made with standard manufacturing processes. Hence, this manufacturing technique could be preferred for the development of high-efficiency shock absorbers cores. In the present work, to achieve shock absorbers high mechanical efficiency while limiting mass and volume, an innovative sandwich shock absorber concept is introduced, which uses additive manufactured solutions for the core by combining the advantages offered by thermoplastics (polypropylene), such as their ability to absorb energy through plasticisation and their recyclability, to those offered by fibre-reinforced thermoset composites (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers), i.e. high stiffness/mass and strength/mass factors. First, numerical low-velocity impact analyses have been carried ou...

Experimental and numerical assessment of the impact behaviour of a composite sandwich panel with a polymeric honeycomb core