Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117

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Composites Part B
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compositesb

Quasi-static crushing behavior of novel re-entrant circular

auxetic honeycombs
Chang Qi a, Feng Jiang a, Alex Remennikov b, Lian-Zheng Pei a, Jun Liu c, Jun-Shan Wang c,
Xiang-Wei Liao d, Shu Yang a, *
a
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, School of Automotive Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China
b
Center for Infrastructure Protection and Mining Safety, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia
c
Ansteel Group Beijing Research Institute Co., Ltd., Beijing, 102211, China
d
Ansteel Group Iron and Steel Research Institute, Anshan, 114021, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Honeycombs with re-entrant (RE) unit cells were found to have negative Poisson’s ratios (NPRs) and enhanced
Auxetic energy absorption capabilities than regular hexagon honeycombs. For further improved energy absorption ca­
Re-entrant circular honeycomb pacity, a novel re-entrant circular (REC) honeycomb configuration is proposed in this work by replacing the
Negative Poisson’s ratio
sloped cell wall of the regular re-entrant honeycomb with double circular arc cell walls, which can dissipate extra
Crushing response
Energy absorption
energy due to more formed plastic angles during the crushing process. The in-plane quasi-static crushing
response of the REC honeycomb with large deformation was investigated theoretically and numerically. The
numerical modeling methods in LS-DYNA software were validated by using the quasi-static crush test data of 3D-
printed REC honeycomb specimens. Experiment and numerical simulations both revealed that quasi-static load
can result in an “X” mode deformation of the REC honeycomb. Based on the simulated deformation profiles of the
representative unit, theoretical models were derived to predict the REC honeycomb’s crushing strength, i.e.
plateau stress. Good agreements were found between the theoretical and the numerical results within a relative
error about 9%. Parametric analyses further showed that the unit cell configuration has a great effect on the
crushing strength of the REC honeycomb. The REC honeycomb presents a varied Poisson’s ratio with the global
strain of the honeycomb; smaller radius to height ratio and length to height ratio were found to yield more
pronounced NPR effect. Moreover, compared with the regular RE honeycomb, the specific energy absorption of
the REC honeycomb is much higher due to the introduction of the double circular arc cell walls.

focusing on their superior properties owing to the NPR effect, including

the increased shear modulus [8], increased indentation resistance [9],
1. Introduction
enhanced fracture toughness [6], better energy absorption [10], vari­
able stiffness [11] and lower fatigue crack propagation [12] compared
Auxetics refer to the materials or structures showing counterintuitive
with conventional materials. With a better understanding of the mech­
deformations compared to conventional ones, i.e. the auxetics show
anisms of their mechanical advantages, the auxetics are expected to be
transverse expansion or contraction under uniaxial tension or
used in various engineering applications, such as automotive crash
compression load [1]. As such, auxetics possess negative Poisson’s ratios
safety, product packaging and structural protection [13–15].
(NPRs) in a general sense. Auxetic materials were first found in nature,
Honeycombs have been used for decades as engineering materials in
including the cancellous bone [2], the cow teat skin [3], the aquatic
aerospace, naval, electronic, and automotive industries due to their high
salamander skin [4] and some face-centered cubic (FCC) crystals [5]. In
stiffness/strength to mass ratios as well as the matured manufacturing
1987, Lakes [6] first obtained a man-made NPR foam by heat treatment
techniques [16]. In recent years, auxetic honeycombs with NPR prop­
of the polyurethane foam, and measured its Poisson’s ratio of 0.7.
erties have been extensively researched as innovative engineering
Later, Caddock et al. [7] also achieved the NPR effect in preparing
meta-materials, due to their even higher relative stiffness and strength
polytetrafluoroethylene with a microporous structure and named it as
and more efficient energy absorption [17] than traditional honeycombs.
auxetic. The auxetics have drawn lots of research efforts in recent years

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yangshu@dlut.edu.cn (S. Yang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2020.108117
Received 16 January 2020; Received in revised form 25 April 2020; Accepted 29 April 2020
Available online 15 May 2020
1359-8368/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Qi et al.
Nomenclature
r radius of circular arcs
l length of the cell walls along the x direction
h height of the cell walls along the y direction
t cell walls thickness of honeycomb
s the width of the unit cell along the x direction
α radius to height ratio
β length to height ratio
γ thickness to height ratio
θ angle between circular arc and cell walls along the x
direction
ρr relative density of honeycomb
b out-of-plane thickness of honeycomb
V loading velocity
ρs density of base material
E Young’s modulus of base material
The NPR effect of the auxetic honeycombs can be realized by the special
topologies of their microstructures such as the re-entrant (RE) [18], the
chiral [19], the double arrowhead [20] and the star-shaped [21] units,
etc. There are many studies have investigated the static mechanical
properties of the auxetic honeycombs. A For instance, Wang et al. [22]
analyzed the elastic properties of RE honeycombs in two orthogonal
directions using a strain-based expansion homogenization method.
Alderson et al. [23] measured the Poisson’s ratio of a set of chiral
honeycombs and anti-chiral honeycombs with 3, 4 and 6 ligaments
under small deformation based on finite element analysis (FEA) and
experiments. Gao et al. [24] studied the mechanical properties of the
three-dimensional double arrowhead structures intersected by a
two-dimensional honeycomb with negative Poisson’s ratio through
theoretical, numerical and experimental analyses.
Study has showed that the honeycombs’ crushing behaviors under
large deformation, such as deformation mode, deformation mechanism
and crushing strength, are different from those under small deformation
[25]. In some applications, metallic auxetic honeycombs are often used
as cores of sandwich protection structures suffered from large defor­
mation [26]. Analyses of deformation mechanism of the auxetic hon­
eycombs in the elastic deformation cannot satisfy the increasing
applications demand in advanced engineering fields. One notable
property of the honeycombs under large deformation is that the crushing
strain increases without obvious increase in stress for a certain period of
time, which is called the “plateau stage”. The average stress during this
stage is defined as the crushing strength, which dominates the energy
absorption of the material [27]. Qi et al. [28] analyzed the in-plane
crushing response of the tetra-chiral honeycombs under both
quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions through numerical simu­
lations and theoretical analyses. Gao et al. [29] deduced the empirical
formula to characterize the crushing deformation modes of the
double-arrowed auxetic honeycombs under large deformation in two
in-plane directions. Fu et al. [30] investigated the nonlinear shear
modulus of the RE honeycomb under large deformation derived by the
mechanical behavior of the cell configuration verified by numerical
simulations. Hu et al. [31] studied the quasi-static crushing mechanical
properties of anti-trichial honeycombs with large deformation.
With the fast development of additive manufacturing (AM) methods
such as the 3D printing technique, some innovative configurations are
being devised to achieve new deformation mode, enhanced stiffness,
more obvious NPR effect or larger plateau stress region of the honey­
combs. Hu et al. [32] studied the quasi-static crushing properties of
re-entrant anti-trichiral honeycombs made from ABS polymer by both
experiments and theoretical analysis. Wang et al. [33,34] proposed a
novel re-entrant auxetic honeycomb named as re-entrant star-shaped
2
Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
ν Poisson’s ratio
L length of REC honeycomb in x-direction
H height of REC honeycomb in y-direction
σ ys yield strength of base material
ε global stain of the honeycomb in y-direction
H0 original height of the representative unit
Hf final height of representative unit
L0 original length of representative unit
Lf final length of representative unit
σ1 stress at the loading end of specimen
σ2 stress at the supporting end of specimen
uy displacement of representative unit in y-direction
Mp fully plastic bending moment of cell wall, Mp ¼ ρysbt2/4
Δθ plastic angle
σs quasi-static plateau stress
vs steady-shock velocity
εd locking strain
honeycomb (RSH) and star-arrowhead honeycomb (SAH), with the
in-plane crushing responses explored theoretically and numerically.
Ingrole et al. [35] designed a new enhanced auxetic honeycomb based
on the RE honeycomb and conducted tests on 3D printed samples. In
addition, hierarchy is being introduced to energy absorbing structures
for enhancing mechanical properties. Li et al. [36] found that the hier­
archical tubes is a more weight-efficient energy absorber than the reg­
ular hexagonal tubes. Fan et al. [37,38] proposed hierarchical cellular
materials, which have superior mechanical properties compared with
solid-wall cellular materials. Sun et al. [39] introduced a hierarchical
core sandwich panel against the blast loading. Fang et al. [40] investi­
gated the mechanical properties of a special hierarchical honeycomb
under out-of-plane loads.
As above shown, development and design of auxetic honeycomb
materials with enhanced mechanical properties, especially in crushing
behaviors under large deformations, has become an interesting and hot
topic that researchers are paying close attention to. In this regard, more
efforts are needed to propose and construct new auxetic honeycomb
configurations with innovative mechanisms to achieve superior me­
chanical performances such as the enhanced energy absorption capa­
bility than the conventional honeycombs. Moreover, quantitative
relationships between the mechanical properties and the various design
variables need to be revealed and established to assist the design process
of such materials.
In this work, we proposed a new re-entrant circular (REC) auxetic
honeycomb configuration by replacing the sloped cell wall of the con­
ventional re-entrant (RE) unit with double circular arc cell walls, which
shows obvious NPR effect observed through experiment and finite
element (FE) simulations. The FE modeling method was validated by
using the quasi-static crushing test data of a REC honeycomb specimen
obtained through 3D-printing technology. The elastic-plastic deforma­
tion mode and the collapse mechanism of the REC honeycombs were
revealed by FE simulations. Based on the deformed profiles of the
representative unit cells and the principle of conservation of energy,
theoretical models have been derived to predict the crushing strength of
the REC honeycomb subject to quasi-static load. With the theoretical
models, the effects of geometric parameters of the unit cell including
radius to height ratio and length to height ratio on the crushing strength
of the REC honeycomb were analyzed. Poisson’ ratio of the REC hon­
eycomb was analyzed, and the variation of Poisson’ ratio with respect to
the global crushing strain with different radius to height ratio and length
to height ratio were achieved and explained in detail. Finally, Compared
to the RE honeycomb with the same feature dimensions, the specific
energy absorption (SEA), i.e. energy absorption per unit structural mass,
value of the REC honeycomb is higher at any global strain levels.
C. Qi et al.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Re-entrant circular honeycombs
Fig. 1b shows the schematic view of the in-plane crushing setup of a
typical REC honeycomb specimen (Fig. 1a) in this work. The honeycomb
is placed on a rigid plate and vertically crushed by another rigid plate
from the top along the negative y-direction with a constant velocity V.
Geometry of the honeycomb unit cell can be uniquely defined by three
independent variables l, h and r, as indicated in Fig. 1d, where l is the top
and bottom side length, h is the height of the unit cell, and r is the circle
radius of the eight arcs replacing the inclined cell walls of the RE hon­
eycomb, refer to Fig. 1c. Geometrical feasibility requires that h/2<r<l/
2. The four small circular arcs have identical arch angle of θ, while θ ¼
arcsin (h/2r). The width of the unit cell is s, and the cell wall is assumed
to be uniform with thickness t, while the out-of-plane width is b. To assist
the derivation of the crushing strength formula in the following, non-
dimensional parameters have been defined, the radius to height ratio
α ¼ r/h, the length to height ratio β ¼ l/h, and the thickness to height
ratio γ ¼ t/h, respectively. We assume the honeycomb specimen has 8 �
15 cells, i.e., the number of cells is 8 in the x-direction and 15 in the y-
direction. The overall height of the REC honeycomb in y-direction after
the array is H, and the overall length in x-direction is L. The circular arc
angle, θ, the unit cell width, s, and the relative density, ρr, of the REC
honeycomb can be expressed as
1
θ ¼ arcsin (1)
2α
s ¼ 2hðβ α þ α cos θÞ (2)
γðβ þ 4αθÞ
ρr ¼ (3)
β α þ αcosθ
The geometrical restriction on the REC honeycomb unit cell can also
Fig. 1. (a) 3D-printed REC honeycomb specimen; (b) schematic of a REC honeycomb specimen (α ¼ 0.6, β ¼ 1.2) under crushing load; (c) unit cell configuration of
RE honeycomb; (d) unit cell configuration of REC honeycomb.
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Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
be written as
2αð1 cos θÞ � β (4)
For convenience in the following discussion, we name the central
portion framed by a green dotted line of the unit cell as hourglass cell,
and the four surroundings framed by a red dotted line as petal cells, as in
Fig. 1d. The petal cell and the hourglass cell form a hierarchical
configuration.
Depending on the specific applications or requirements, base mate­
rials for constructing the REC honeycomb could be metallic materials
such as the aluminum alloys of traditional honeycombs, or polymers
such as the polylactic acid (PLA) widely used by 3D printers. In this
work, both PLA and generalized metallic material were used to construct
the novel REC honeycombs. The former was used for fast preparation of
the REC honeycomb specimens on a 3D printer and later the proof-of-
concept experimental tests, while the latter was applied in the numeri­
cal models for a thorough investigation on the crushing behaviors of
such novel honeycombs under the quasi-static load.
Mechanical properties of the PLA used in 3D-printing were obtained
by tensile tests of dog-bone-shaped samples in our previous study [28],
as in Fig. 2a. Fig. 2b shows the engineering stress-strain curve of the PLA
material with Young’s modulus E ¼ 1.57 GPa and yield stress σ ys ¼ 32
MPa at a failure strain about 0.02. The generalized metallic material
constituting the REC honeycomb was assumed to be rate independent
elastic perfect-plastic with mass density ρs ¼ 2700 kg/m3, Young’s
modulus E ¼ 70 GPa, Poisson’s ratio ν ¼ 0.3, and yield strength ρys ¼
130 MPa.
2.2. Finite element (FE) modeling method
We used the nonlinear explicit FE solver LS-DYNA 971 for all the
simulations and performed the numerical modeling work in the com­
mercial software Hypermesh® [41]. In the baseline FE model, l ¼ 6 mm,
C. Qi et al. Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117

Fig. 2. (a) 3D-printed dog-bone-shaped samples; (b) Engineering stress-strain curve of PLA under uniaxial tension [28].

h ¼ 5 mm, r ¼ 3 mm, t ¼ 0.2 mm, H ¼ 75 mm, L ¼ 71.2 mm, and b ¼ 5 for all interfaces [27].
mm were adopted for the unit cell (see Fig. 1b), with corresponding α, β,
and γ values of 0.6, 1.2 and 0.04, respectively. Based on the baseline
design, three geometrical configurations were first obtained by changing 2.3. Specimen and experimental set-up
the value of α between 0.54 and 0.7 with an arc radius r varying between
of 2.7 and 3.5 mm, respectively. Secondly, another three geometrical 2.3.1. Specimen
models were obtained by setting the value of β to 1.4, and 1.6, with the The proposed REC honeycomb configuration is relatively compli­
side length l of 7 and 8 mm, respectively. In these cases, the overall cated and not easily manufactured by traditional machining methods.
honeycomb’ height H is keeping a constant value of 75 mm. The For proof-of-concept and model validation purposes, prototypes of the
geometrical configurations of the seven honeycomb specimens are listed REC honeycomb were constructed by using a 3D-printer through the
in Table 1 along with their overall honeycomb’s length and relative fused deposition method (FDM), as shown in Fig. 3a. The overall ma­
densities. In addition, two specimens were obtained by changing the cell chine size of the 3D-printer is 480 � 475 � 620 mm, while the printing
wall thickness to 0.1 and 0.3 mm, corresponding to a γ value of 0.02 and platform size is 300 � 300 � 300 mm. The nozzle diameter of the 3D-
0.06, respectively. FE models of these specimens were used to explore printer is 0.4 mm, and the printing accuracy is �0.08 mm. Three spec­
the effects of geometrical parameters on the in-plane crushing response imens were printed with identical dimensions: length L ¼ 123.3 mm,
of the REC honeycombs. height H ¼ 85.6 mm, out-of-plane width b ¼ 15 mm, unit cell side length
Cell walls of the honeycomb were modeled using Belytschko-Tsay l ¼ 32 mm, cell height h ¼ 28 mm, circular radius r ¼ 15 mm, and cell
(BT) four-node shell elements with five integration points through the wall thickness t ¼ 1.76 mm, corresponding to α, β, and γ values of 0.54,
thickness. After performing a mesh convergence analysis, a mesh size of
0.3 mm was determined to be optimal, which balanced the numerical
stability, accuracy and computational efficiency. Behaviors of the
constitutive materials, i.e. the PLA and the metallic material, were
modeled using *MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR_PLASTICITY, in which the
experimentally obtained stress-strain curve of the PLA can be defined.
Moreover, von Mises yield surface with associated flow rule was adopted
for the post-yield behavior of the constituting material. In the models,
the out-of-plane degrees of freedom (DOF) of the specimen were con­
strained. The bottom rigid plate was fixed and the top plate was given a
vertical constant velocity of V, as shown in Fig. 1b. The AUTOMA­
TIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE algorithm was adopted for contact be­
tween the honeycomb specimen and the rigid plates. In addition, the
AUTOMATIC_SINGLE_SURFACE algorithm was defined to account for Fig. 3. (a) 3D printing process of REC honeycomb specimen through FDM; (b)
self-contact of the honeycomb walls. The contact friction was neglected Uniaxial compression test setup of 3D-printed REC honeycomb specimen.

Table 1
Geometric parameters of the REC honeycombs.
Circular radius and cell height ratio α Cell side length and cell height ratio β

0.54 0.6 (baseline) 0.7 1.4 1.6

Geometric configuration

Honeycomb’s length L (mm)

66.4 71.2 75.3 76.2 101.2
Relative density ρr 0.174 0.153 0.185 0.133 0.119

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C. Qi et al. Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117

1.14 and 0.06, respectively. The constitutive material of the specimens is

the PLA, whose stress-strain curve is depicted in Fig. 2b.

2.3.2. Quasi-static crushing test set-up

We performed quasi-static crushing test of the 3D-printed REC
honeycomb specimen by using a universal testing machine, as shown in
Fig. 3b. The specimen was placed on a fixed flat steel plate and com­
pressed by a top steel plate at a loading speed of 4 mm/min. Compres­
sion was along the same direction as tension of the dog-bone-shaped
samples to avoid anisotropy of the PLA material. The crushing force
level was recorded by a sensor in the loading plate. A high-definition
digital camera was used to monitor the deformation process of the
specimen. To obtain repeatable and reliable results, three specimens of
identical dimensions were tested respectively.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Experimental results and model validation

For the purpose of numerical model validation, FE model of the

tested specimen was developed to simulate the quasi-static crushing
response. Fig. 4 shows the snapshots of specimen deformation during the
crushing process along with the simulated profiles at the same moment.
Due to the consistent deformation of three tested specimens, only one
specimen is showed in Figs. 4 and 5. During the early stage of loading
with a vertical displacement up to 7.5 mm, the specimen showed mainly
elastic deformation. Further crushed, the curved walls of the specimen
began to bend and rotate about the connecting points with the hori­
zontal walls. It is noted that the arcs along the diagonal lines experi­
enced larger deformations than others and formed two deformation
bands, as depicted in Fig. 4e and f. Accordingly, the central cell
deformed the most with its two large arcs in contact with each other,
seen in both the experiment and the simulation. Meanwhile, such a
unique deformation pattern caused the cells in the bilateral regions to
move towards the center of the specimen, resulting in an obvious NPR
effect, as shown in Fig. 4e. Further crushing resulted in the gradual
bending and collapse of more curved walls, as well as the initiation of
bending deformation of the horizontal walls, and the specimen shrank
more obvious as seen in Fig. 4h with a displacement of 30 mm. Finally,
most cells collapsed and self-contacted along with material ruptures at
several joint areas due to stress concentration, as in Fig. 4i–l. The
numerically obtained deformation patterns of the specimen at different
strain levels match the experimental results quite well, as seen in Fig. 4.
The force-displacement history of the specimen measured during the
quasi-static crushing test is depicted in Fig. 5. At first very small
displacement before 3 mm, the REC honeycomb specimens were crushed
to eliminate the unevenness caused by the printing errors, resulting in a
first small peak in the force-displacement curves. In the ideal FE model,
the starting time of loading was set to be delayed a little to avoid the
unevenness of the tested specimens. In addition, the deviation of three
curves is caused by the printing accuracy. Three specimens have the
same macro-dimension with some small print defects. Print defects of
some cell walls with different thickness in the plastic hinges results in
the different of the peaks and trends. Fig. 4. Deformed profiles of 3D-printed REC honeycomb specimen under quasi-
Three experimental crushing force is biased within a certain range, static crushing (V ¼ 4 mm/min) with crushing displacements of: (a) 0 mm in
featuring a short elastic deformation period with a maximum peak force experiment; (b) 0 mm in FEA; (c) 7.5 mm in experiment; (d) 7.5 mm in FEA; (e)
about 1450 N followed by a plateau stage with a load level about 1000 16 mm in experiment; (f) 16 mm in FEA; (g) 30 mm in experiment; (h) 30 mm
N. This justifies the cellular material characteristics of the 3D-printed in FEA; (i) 40 mm in experiment; (j) 40 mm in FEA; (k) and (l) enlarged view of
the rupture region, 40 mm in experiment.
REC honeycomb. Good agreement between the numerical and the
experimental force-displacement curves was observed in both force
levels and corresponding displacements. Therefore, the FE modeling 3.2. Quasi-static crushing response of REC honeycombs
methods herein are assumed valid and can be used in the following
study. This study aims to examine the quasi-static crushing behaviors of the
newly proposed REC honeycomb, including the deformation pattern, the
plateau stress, the Poisson’s ratio and the energy absorption capabilities.
These information will provide a basis for further engineering

5
C. Qi et al.
Fig. 5. Comparison of three experimentally, one numerically and one theo­
retically obtained crushing force-displacement curves of 3D-printed PLA-based
REC honeycomb specimen.
applications of such materials. Towards this end, FE models of the REC
honeycombs were developed based on the validated numerical methods.
In addition, to assist quick estimation in the design practice, the crushing
strength, i.e. the plateau stress of the REC honeycomb was derived
theoretically as a function of the unit cell dimensions and the
Fig. 6. FE simulated deformations of REC honeycombs (equal γ ¼ 0.04) under quasi-static crushing (V ¼ 1 m/s) at different strain levels with different geometrical
parameters: (a) α ¼ 0.6, β ¼ 1.2 (baseline); (b) α ¼ 0.54, β ¼ 1.2; (c) α ¼ 0.6, β ¼ 1.6.
6
Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
constitutive material properties.
3.2.1. Numerical results
In this work, we used the explicit finite element method to solve
quasi-static problem. Considering the quasi-static loading velocity in the
experiment is significantly low, to conduct an economically-efficient as
well as accurate analysis, both mass effect and analysis time should be
reduced. Refer to the work of Zou et al. [42], when the impact velocity is
lower than the steady-shock velocity vs, the deformation mode of the
honeycomb can be regarded as quasi-static mode. The steady-shock
velocity vs is given by
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
vs ¼ 2σ s εd =ρs (5)
where ρs is the density of the basic material; εd is the locking strain; and
σ s is the quasi-static crushing strength. For the baseline REC honeycomb
(α ¼ 0.6, β ¼ 1.2, γ ¼ 0.04), the locking strain of εd ¼ 0.71 can be
determined by the energy absorption efficiency method [43], and the
steady-shock velocity can be obtained as vs ¼ 18.9 m/s. The crushing
velocity of V ¼ 1 m/s is lower than the steady-shock velocity vs, so we
assumed that this load can be regarded as quasi-static crushing load.
Fig. 6 shows the FE simulated deformation patterns of the REC
honeycomb with different geometrical parameters at different strain
levels under the crushing velocity of V ¼ 1 m/s along the y direction. The
green dashed frame refers to the boundary of the initial model. In gen­
eral, a non-uniform deformation distribution is observed from the
C. Qi et al.
beginning of the loading throughout the whole process till the specimen
is fully compacted. The deformation of the baseline model (α ¼ 0.6, β ¼
1.2, γ ¼ 0.04) first occurs mainly in the upper and centric regions of the
specimen at a global strain of 0.25, where the dominating mechanisms
include the shrinking of local hourglass cells to the center, the bending
of circular arc cell walls and the rotation of the petal cells about the
joints without too much compression. This results in a so-called “X”
mode deformation pattern shown in Fig. 6a. As the global strain in­
creases to 0.5, the unit cells form two obvious “X” shaped bands before
the collapse of rest cells. Three most collapsed regions locate in the
upper, the middle and the lower parts of the specimen, respectively. The
re-entrant essence of the REC honeycomb causes lateral gathering of the
unit cells toward the center, resulting in the NPR deformation of the
original rectangular specimen. Further crushed, most of the unit cells are
compacted at a global strain of 0.75. Fig. 6b and c shows the deformed
profiles of the REC honeycomb specimens with α ¼ 0.54, β ¼ 1.2 and α
¼ 0.6, β ¼ 1.6, respectively. Clearly, the unit cell configuration shows a
great effect on the deformation pattern of the REC honeycomb. In the
current case, the initiation and the evolution of deformation bands are
different in the three specimens with different unit cell configurations.
Moreover, compared with the baseline, the specimen with a smaller
circular arc radius shows larger lateral contraction and more obvious
NPR effect (refer to Fig. 6a and b). On the other hand, a larger side
length of the unit cell than the baseline results in the “bulge effect” of the
specimen on both sides and less NPR effect, as shown in Fig. 6c.
Fig. 7 shows the quasi-static crushing stress-strain curves of typical
REC honeycombs, which can be divided into three stages, corresponding
to the three distinct deformation mechanisms. Stage A is the linear
elasticity, where the stress increases linearly with elastic strain, corre­
sponding to the elastic bending deformation of the arc walls. After
reaching the material yield stress, plastic hinges form at both ends of the
arc walls. Before the hourglass cells fully compacted and all petal cell
contacting, the stress oscillates around a certain value and forms the
plateau stage, i.e., Stage B in the stress-strain curve of the REC honey­
comb. In Stage B, the deformation of the unit cell is out of sync,
including the cells those have not undergone plastic deformation, those
have been contacted, and those are in-between state, as shown in Fig. 6.
The cells with larger deformation constitute the “X” shaped bands,
resulting in the non-uniform deformation of the overall REC honey­
comb. With a larger strain, more cells came into contact, and the “X”
shaped bands become thicker gradually until these bands mix together.
The evolution of the “X” shaped bands causes the stress oscillation in
Stage B as in Fig. 7. Eventually, cell walls contact with each other and
the compressive densification occurs. Once the arc walls of the cells are
tightly packed, further crushing results in the collapse and flattening of
Fig. 7. Typical stress-strain curves of REC honeycombs under quasi-static
crushing (V ¼ 1 m/s).
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Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
the circular arcs which require a much higher force level. Therefore, the
stress increases rapidly until the specimen is fully compacted, corre­
sponding to Stage C in Fig. 7. Generally, honeycomb with higher plateau
stress can absorb more energy. We’ve focused on Stage B and derived the
theoretical formulation for plateau stress prediction of the REC
honeycomb.
3.2.2. Theoretical analysis of plateau stress
To derive the theoretical crushing strength of the REC honeycomb
subject to the quasi-static load, i.e., the plateau stress, an ideal profile of
one representative unit was established for theoretical analysis (see
Fig. 8e and f), according to the collapse processes of typical cell
extracted from the FE result (Fig. 6a) in Section 3.2.1, as shown in
Fig. 8a–d. Arraying such representative units along both x and y-di­
rections can reproduce the total REC honeycomb. The representative
unit has an original width L0 ¼ s and an original height H0 ¼ h (Fig. 8e).
The length of the cell walls l, circular arcs radius r and cell wall thickness
t are assumed to be constants during the crushing process. The constit­
uent material was assumed to be rate independent rigid perfect-plastic in
the theoretical analysis considering the negligible elastic stage as in
Fig. 7.
At the beginning of the collapse process, the unit cell remain at their
original positions with no deformations shown in Fig. 8e. After that, the
top cell wall moves downward toward the bottom one under the
crushing, and the arc wall ACB bends an angle of Δθ until the cell
approach the densification state, as shown in Fig. 8f. At this state, the
collapsed cell height is Hf. The relative displacement along the y-di­
rection of the representative unit from the initial position to densifica­
tion state is:
uy ¼ H0 Hf ¼ h 2t 4rsin2 ðθ = 2Þ (6)
As shown in Fig. 8f, the bended circular arc wall A’C’B’ forms one
plastic hinge at A’ point while the middle part of the arc A’C’B’ deforms
very small and almost keeps constant curvature. Therefore, we assume
that the plastic angle is formed by the arc wall around the joint A point
as shown in Fig. 8f:
Δθ ​ ¼ ​ π=2 θ (7)
According to the theory of energy conservation, the external work is
equal to the plastic energy dissipation. Due to the quasi-static load, the
kinetic energy caused by inertial effect can be neglected in this case,
refer to the work of Wang at al [29]. There are 16 plastic angles form at
the ends of 8 arc walls. Considering the same 16 plastic angles marked
by 16 small red circles in Fig. 8e, that reads
L0 bσ s uy ¼ 16Mp Δθ (8)
where Mp is the plastic bending moment of the arc walls. In the case of
rigid perfect-plastic beams with a rectangular cross section, Mp ¼ σysbt2/
4. By using Eqs. (6)–(8) and the definitions of α ¼ r/h, β ¼ l/h and γ ¼ t/h,
the quasi-static plateau stress σ l of the REC honeycomb can be obtained
as
σys γ2 ðπ 2θÞ
σs ¼ � � (9)
ðβ α þ α cos θÞ 1 2γ 4αsin2 ðθ=2Þ
The calculation process is transparent. Some important mechanical
indexes of the REC honeycombs are listed in Table 2, containing the
bending moment, the plastic angle, the displacement of representative
unit in y-direction, the theoretical plateau stress, the numerical crushing
strength and the relative error. The starting and ending strains of the
plateau stage are uniformly taken as 0.05 and 0.5 to avoid the effect of
elasticity and densification. The plateau stress of the REC honeycomb
under the quasi-static crushing load as in Eq. (9) is only related to the
yield strength of the constitutive material and the parameters of the unit
configuration. Fig. 9 shows the FE simulated global stress-strain re­
sponses of the REC honeycombs with different parameters, along with
C. Qi et al. Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117

Fig. 8. Collapse process of one representative unit of the baseline REC honeycomb under quasi-static crushing: (a) initial configuration (FE model); (b–c) the collapse
processes; (d) densification (FE model); (e) initial configuration (theoretical model), and (f) idealized densification (theoretical model).

Table 2
Numerical and theoretical mechanical indexes of the REC honeycombs.
Radius to height ratio α Length to height ratio β Thickness to height ratio γ

0.54 0.6 (baseline) 0.7 1.4 1.6 0.02 0.06

3
Plastic bending moment Mp (10 N⋅m) 6.50 6.50 6.50 6.50 6.50 1.63 14.63
plastic angle Δθ 0.39 0.59 0.78 0.59 0.59 0.59 0.59
Displacement of representative unit in y-direction uy (mm) 1.24 1.92 2.50 1.92 1.92 2.12 1.72
Numerical crushing strength (MPa) 0.699 0.670 0.678 0578 0.467 0.160 1.571
Theoretical crushing strength by Eq, 9 (MPa) 0.752 0.682 0.652 0.562 0.477 0.154 1.714
Relative error (%) 7.45 1.82 3.84 2.80 2.27 3.48 9.08

the corresponding plateau stresses predicted by the theoretical model of
Eq. (9). In all the cases, the numerical crushing strength fluctuates along
the theoretical predictions. Good agreement between the theoretical and
numerical predictions can be observed from Table 2 with the maximum
relative errors about 9%. In addition, the theoretical predicted mean
crushing force of 1073.8 N by multiplying the crushing area and Eq. (9)
is compared with the experimental value, as shown in Fig. 5. The
theoretical mean crushing force is close to the three experimental
crushing forces. Therefore, it is evident that the theoretical formulation
Eq. (9) provides a good estimation of the quasi-static crushing strength
for the REC honeycomb.
3.3. Discussions
3.3.1. Crushing strength
Fig. 10 shows the theoretically predicted variation of REC honey­
comb’s quasi-static crushing strength with different parameters, con­
taining radius to height ratio α, length to height ratio β and thickness to
height ratio γ. With the larger thickness to height ratio γ, the crushing
strength become larger. It can be explained by that the larger thickness
to height ratio means larger relative density of the REC honeycomb as in
Eq. (3), helping increasing the crushing strength. In addition, smaller
radius to height ratio α and length to height ratio β tend to show larger
crushing strength, and the length to height ratio β has a greater impact
on crushing strength than the radius to height ratio α. This can be
explained as follows: smaller α value means smaller circular arc radius
and the petal cells closer to the circle, which can earlier enter the
densification while producing the same number of plastic angles, help­
ing to increase the crushing strength; smaller β means smaller cell side
length, relatively speaking, the number of plastic angles in same area of
region becomes more, helping to increase the crushing strength; the
number of plastic angles is more sensitive to the crushing strength than
the strain to densification, resulting in the length to height ratio is more
sensitive to the crushing strength than the radius to height ratio.
3.3.2. Poisson’s ratio
During the crushing process, the REC honeycombs laterally shrink in
varying degrees, as shown in Fig. 6. The lateral displacement of the REC
honeycomb is non-uniform along the y direction because of the overall
non-homogeneous deformation. To calculate the numerical Poisson’s
ratio of the REC honeycomb, 16 red points uniformly along the right
lateral side of the REC honeycomb are trailed considering the symmetry
of the specimens, as shown in Fig. 1b. The displacement of the 16 red
points along the x direction at different global strain are recorded. The
lateral strain of the REC honeycomb is then calculated by the double
average lateral displacement of these trailed points and the overall
length of honeycomb along the x direction L. Fig. 11 shows lateral
displacement-strain curves of five typical red points recorded in Fig. 1b.
Due to the overall non-homogeneous deformation, five curves have
different trends and the maximum lateral displacements of these point
are similar. Point “A” is crushed first, reaching the maximum lateral
displacement first. Point “C” is farthest from “X” shaped band, resulting
in the lateral displacement of the Point “C” decreases most slowly.
Fig. 12 shows Poisson’s ratio and global crushing strain curves of
REC honeycomb with different radius to height ratio α and length to
height ratio β. As speculated by the deformation, the REC honeycomb
presents a negative Poisson’s ratio at any global strain. Different from
the traditional definition of the Poisson’s ratio in the elastic range, the

8
C. Qi et al.
Fig. 9. FEA predicted quasi-static (V ¼ 1 m/s) stresses of REC honeycombs
corresponding plateau stresses predicted by theoretical analysis with different
parameters: (a) variable α; (b) variable β; (c) variable γ.
Poisson’s ratio of the REC honeycomb varies with the global strain. The
Poisson’s ratio first shows minimum value at the early global strain of
crushing as shown in Fig. 12, and the minimum Poisson’s ratio is about
1.0. With the increased strain, the Poisson’s ratio gradually increases
until converges to a certain value, which is 0.35 of α ¼ 0.54, 0.32 of
9
Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
Fig. 10. Theoretical quasi-static crushing strengths of REC honeycombs with
different parameters.
Fig. 11. Displacement along the x direction of five typical lateral points trailed
in the simulated deformation profile of the baseline REC honeycomb under the
quasi-static load.
α ¼ 0.6, 0.25 of α ¼ 0.7, 0.24 of β ¼ 1.4 and 0.22 of β ¼ 1.6. This
upward trend of the Poisson’s ratio with increased global strain can be
explained by the non-uniform overall deformation mode. At the early
global strain, few cells deformation first and has entered the densifica­
tion stage, forming the “X” shaped bands, while most cells have not
occurred significant deformation, as shown in Fig. 6. These deformed
cells caused a sudden laterally shrink, resulting in the trough of the
Poisson’s ratio. With the global strain increased, more and more cells go
into the densification stage, resulting in the Poisson’s ratio converging to
a certain value, i.e. the Poisson’s ratio at the honeycomb fully densified.
In addition, smaller radius to height ratio α and length to height ratio β
tends to show smaller Poisson’s ratio, indicating more obvious NPR ef­
fect. These can be explained as follow: smaller α means larger arch angle
θ, and larger deformable angle for the hourglass cells to laterally shrink,
helping to increase lateral displacement of the honeycomb; smaller β
indicates smaller cell length l and the overall honeycomb’s length L,
meaning in the case of equal lateral displacement, the lateral strain is
increased, helping to increase the Poisson’s ratio.
3.3.3. Comparisons with the RE and REC honeycombs
The REC honeycomb is proposed by replacing the sloped cell wall of
the regular RE honeycomb with double circular cell walls. It is signifi­
cant to compare these two kinds of honeycombs to highlight the special
advantage of this design. Therefore, FE models of RE honeycomb were
also established. The macro scale of the honeycomb, the number of cells,
C. Qi et al.
Fig. 12. Poisson’s ratio vs. global crushing strain of REC honeycomb under quasi-static load with (a) different α; (b) different β.
geometrical parameters of the single cell and the simulation setting is
same to the baseline REC honeycomb. Considering the same thickness of
the cell walls, the relative density of two kinds of honeycombs are
different, which is 0.101 of the RE honeycomb and 0.153 of the baseline
REC honeycomb. Fig. 13 gives the FE simulated deformations of RE
honeycombs under quasi-static load. Combining the deformation of the
baseline REC honeycomb as shown in Fig. 6b, the RE honeycomb shows
the same macroscopical deformation pattern with the “X” mode under
the quasi-static load. The difference is that only one “X” shaped band is
formed during the crushing process, and the “X” shaped band is
distributed under the honeycomb.
Fig. 14a shows the stress-strain curves of the RE and REC honey­
combs under the quasi-static load. The numerical crushing strength of
the RE honeycomb is compared with the theoretical plateau stress
derived by Hu et al. [27], and the good agreement between the nu­
merical and theoretical predictions verifies the FE model of the RE
honeycomb. The curve of the REC honeycomb shows three distinct
stages, containing the elastic stage, the plateau stage and the densifi­
cation stage, while there are only elastic and plateau stages can be
observed in the curve of the RE honeycomb before the global strain of
0.8. In addition, the plateau stress of the REC honeycomb is much higher
than the RE honeycomb. On the one hand, the sloped cell wall was
replaced with double circular arc cell walls, resulting in the double
plastic hinges numbers, significantly increasing the plateau stress. On
the other hand, the structural hierarchy results in the petal cells flat­
tened after the hourglass cells shrinking, and the stress of the REC
honeycomb rises very quickly after the plateau stage.
Fig. 14b shows the Poisson’s ratio-strain curves of the RE and REC
honeycombs under the quasi-static load. The REC honeycomb tends to
show smaller Poisson’ ratio at the early strain, meaning more obvious
NPR effect. Refer to Fig. 6b, there are two “X”-shaped bands in the REC
honeycomb and only one “X”-shaped band in the RE honeycomb, which
means the REC honeycomb tends to form more “X”-shaped band and
toward to the overall deformation, resulting in the more lateral
displacement at the early strain. The inward contraction of the hourglass
Fig. 13. FE simulated deformations of the RE honeycomb under the quasi-static load.
10
Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
cell causes the obvious NPR effect of the RE and the REC honeycombs.
Due to the same configuration size of the hourglass cell in these two
kinds of honeycombs, the final convergent value of Poisson’s ratio at the
global strain about 0.8 is equal about 0.32.
Specific energy absorption (SEA) is the energy absorption per unit
mass. A higher value of SEA represents the better energy absorption
effect. Fig. 15 shows the SEA-strain curves of the REC honeycomb and
other typical auxetic honeycombs with the same macro scale, the same
single cell geometries and wall thickness (t ¼ 0.2 mm) under quasi-static
load. It is noted that SEA value of the REC honeycomb is higher than the
star and the tetra-chiral honeycombs before the global strain of 0.62 and
0.73. In addition, the SEA value of the REC honeycomb is higher than
that of the RE honeycomb at any strain levels. With the increased strain
level, the discrepancy becomes larger. The SEA value of REC honeycomb
is 48.2% more than that of RE honeycomb at the global strain of 0.4,
while the SEA value of REC honeycomb is 90.9% more than at the global
strain of 0.8. It is cleared that the hierarchical REC honeycomb was able
to absorb more energy through plastic deformation than the regular
counterpart under the same quasi-static load. Due to the introduction of
structural hierarchy, the unit cell under the quasi-static load deforms in
two steps. Firstly, the hourglass cell shrinks laterally until the cell
approach the provisional densification state. Secondly, the petal cell
flattened until the cell walls fully contacted. The circular arc walls in the
petal cell is more prone to produce plastic deformation, and produce
double numbers of plastic hinges than one slope cell wall, both help to
enhance the energy absorption of the REC honeycomb.
4. Conclusions
The in-plane quasi-static crushing behaviors of a novel re-entrant
circular (REC) auxetic honeycomb devised from re-entrant honeycomb
under large deformation, has been investigated through experimental,
theoretical and numerical methods. Parametric studies, including radius
to height ratio, length to height ratio and thickness to height ratio were
carried out to reveal the influence of cells’ configuration on the crushing
C. Qi et al.
Fig. 14. Stress-strain and Poisson’s ratio-strain curves of RE honeycomb and the baseline REC honeycomb under the quasi-static load.
Fig. 15. SEA-strain curves of the RE honeycomb, the star honeycomb, the tetra-
chiral honeycomb and the baseline REC honeycomb with the same macro scale
and the same single cell geometries and wall thickness (t ¼ 0.2 mm) under
quasi-static load.
behaviors. The 3D-printed REC honeycomb specimen was token to the
quasi-static uniaxial compression test, and the results validated the
numerical model. Based on the deformation of the numerical results,
theoretical models have been derived to predict the plateau stress of the
REC honeycomb. The re-entrant (RE)and the REC honeycombs are
compared to highlight the advantage of this new configuration. The
main conclusions from the experimental method, theoretical analyses
and numerical simulations can be summarized as follows:
● The REC honeycomb shows non-uniform auxetic deformation before
compaction under the quasi-static load. The unit cell deforms
through circular arc walls bending and then flatted. “X”-shaped
bands can be observed from the experiment and simulation in the
deformation profile of the REC honeycomb under large deformation.
● The crushing strength of the REC honeycomb under the quasi-static
load is only related to the yield strength of the constitutive material
and the parameters of the unit configuration. With different pa­
rameters, the theoretical formulation provides a good estimation of
the crushing strength for the REC honeycomb.
● The radius to height ratio and the length to height ratio, which both
represent the unit cell configuration, are both inversely related to the
crushing strength of the REC honeycomb. In addition, the cell
thickness is positive related to the crushing strength.
● The REC honeycomb presents a negative Poisson’s ratio at any global
strain. Smaller radius to height ratio α and length to height ratio β
tends to show smaller Poisson’s ratio, indicating more obvious
negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) effect.
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Composites Part B 197 (2020) 108117
● The REC honeycomb tends to show more obvious NPR effect than the
RE honeycomb at the early strain, and show the same Poisson’s ratio
when the honeycombs come into the densification stage. The
crushing strength and the specific energy absorption (SEA) of the
REC honeycomb is higher than the RE honeycomb at any global
strain levels.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this
work.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Ansteel Group Beijing Research
Institute Co., Ltd. under contract No.BWJ2019-13, and the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 51475069 and 51475070).
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