Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

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Mechanics of Materials
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmat

Bending characteristics of all-composite hexagon honeycomb sandwich T

beams: experimental tests and a three-dimensional failure mechanism map
⁎
Xingyu Weia,b, Qianqian Wua,b, Ying Gaoa,b, Jian Xionga,b,
a
Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology Harbin 150001, PR China
b
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, PR China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The bending characteristics of all-composite honeycomb sandwich beams were investigated by a three-dimen-
Sandwich beam sional failure mechanism map and verified by three-point bending tests. In this paper, analytical models were
Honeycomb used to predict the three-point bending stiffness, failure load and failure modes of all-composite hexagon hon-
Three-point bending eycomb sandwich beams. A three-dimensional failure mechanism map was generated to characterize the
Three-dimensional failure mechanism map
dominant failure mechanism based upon failure load criteria for shear buckling, shear fracture, debonding,
Load-weight ratio
intracellular dimpling and face fracture. The tailor-folding method was used to fabricate the all-composite
honeycomb sandwich beams. To verify the analytical models and three-dimensional failure mechanism map,
three-point bending tests were carried out on the sandwich beams with different core relative densities, face
thicknesses and loading spans. It was observed that the analytical predictions were in good agreement with the
experimental results. A single case with the supreme load-weight ratio on the failure mechanism map has been
identified and verified. Besides, the paths of maximum load design for a series of geometrical parameters were
also traced. The study provides insights into the role of the physical dimension in tuning the flexural property of
the sandwich structure and expands the application envelope of the failure mechanism map by effectively in-
creasing the structural analytical dimensionality.

1. Introduction composite honeycomb sandwich structures with lighter weight and

Sandwich structures, which are composed of two solid face sheets
and a cellular core have been widely applied in many fields including
aerospace (Du et al., 2019, Du et al., 2018), watercraft (Liu et al., 2018)
and energy absorbing devices (Bonatti and Mohr, 2019, Wadley et al.,
2013, Xu et al., 2019) due to their lightweight (Zhang et al., 2015),
excellent mechanical properties (Sun et al., 2017, Wu and Li, 2017) and
multi-functional potentials (Liu et al., 2015, Wei et al., 2016). The
honeycomb plays an important role in the cellular core on account of
excellent mechanical performance (Gibson and Ashby, 1997). Tradi-
tional honeycombs which are made from stainless steel (Ebrahimi et al.,
2018), aluminum alloy (Wang et al., 2017) or Nomex paper
(Zhang et al., 2018) are widely used as the core of sandwich structures
due to their superior out-of-plane properties (Chen et al., 2019), low
microwave absorption (Wang et al., 2018), high blast resistance
(Huang et al., 2016) and high energy absorbing capacity (Fan et al.,
2008, Li et al., 2018).
Recently, researchers and engineers focus on developing all-
superior mechanical properties. The meaning of all-composite sandwich
structure is both the face sheets and the honeycomb core are fabricated
by carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP). Russell et al. (Russell et al.,
2011) manufactured carbon fiber sandwich beams with square honey-
comb cores by an interlocking method and two-dimensional (2D)
failure mechanism maps were used to distinguish the dominant bending
failure modes of the beams under three-point bending (3PB) load. Xiong
et al. (Xiong et al., 2012) fabricated carbon fiber composite egg and
pyramidal honeycomb beams and constructed 2D failure mechanism
maps with different axes to investigate the failure modes of the sand-
wich beams under 3PB load. Vitale et al. (Vitale et al., 2017) studied
bending properties and failure modes of natural and synthetic fiber
reinforced composite sandwich beams.
The traditional 2D failure mechanism map was firstly employed by
Triantafillou and Gibson in 1987 (Triantafillou and Gibson, 1987). It
has been widely adopted to confirm the relationship of dominant failure
modes with the geometrical parameters of the sandwich beams with
cellular cores since the bending strength of the structure is dominated

⁎
Corresponding author. Harbin Institute of Technology, Center for Composite Materials and Structures,2 Yikuang street, Nangang, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150080,
China
E-mail address: jx@hit.edu.cn (J. Xiong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmat.2020.103401
Received 30 September 2019; Received in revised form 12 March 2020; Accepted 18 March 2020
Available online 08 May 2020
0167-6636/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

by several possible failure modes. Over the last three decades, the ap- 2.1. Honeycomb core failure
plication range of 2D failure mechanism map has continued to broaden
(Andrews and Moussa, 2009, Pingle et al., 2011, Rajaneesh et al., 2014, Six failure modes have been studied in analytical models: (i) core
Yuan et al., 2016). However, all possible failure modes may not be indentation, (ii) shear buckling, (iii) shear fracture, (iv) debonding, (v)
directly and comprehensively revealed by a 2D map. intracellular dimpling and (vi) face fracture. Honeycomb core princi-
In this paper, all-composite sandwich beams with hexagon honey- pally bears shear stress between the top and bottom face sheets and
comb cores (HHC) are fabricated by the tailor-folding method resists the compressive load of the indenter.
(Wei et al., 2019). The mechanical responses of the beams under 3PB
load are studied by a three-dimensional (3D) failure mechanism map. A 2.1.1. Core indentation
key advantage of 3D failure mechanism map is that the selected scope Core indentation appears when the compressive stress exceeds the
of the studied parameters is ground-breaking expanded comparing with compressive strength of the CFRP HHC. It is assumed that the core
the 2D failure mechanism maps. It is more accurate and comprehensive under the indenter bears pure compression. The limit load is predicted
to apply the 3D failure mechanism map and its cross-sections to study by:
the mechanical property of the sandwich structure. The details of the
analytical models for the all-composite honeycomb sandwich beams −1
1 + cos2 2θ sin2 2θ ⎞ 2
under 3PB load are derived in Section 2. The 3D failure mechanism map F = bBρ¯·⎛⎜ 2
+ ⎟

is established in Section 3. The fabrication process of all-composite
honeycomb sandwich beam based on the tailor-folding method is in-
vestigated in Section 4. Experiments were conducted to verify the
analytical models and the 3D failure mechanism map. The comparisons
of experimental results, theoretical values and failure modes are ana-
lyzed and discussed in Section 5. Conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
⎝ 2 σc 4τs 2 ⎠ (3)
where b is the width of the indenter ( in this experiment, 15 mm), B is
the width of the sandwich beam, θ is the angle between the principal
direction in the core and the load of the middle indenter, the 0° com-
pressive strength and in-plane shear strength of carbon fibre reinforced
composite laminates are σc and τs, respectively.

2. Analytical models 2.1.2. Shear buckling

Shear failure between the indenter and support rollers is assumed to
Analytical models for the three-point bending response of all-com- occur in two competing failure modes, either shear buckling or shear
posite honeycomb sandwich beam are developed in this section. fracture. The limit load associated with each shear failure in 3PB test
Schematic diagram of a sandwich beam and photograph of 3PB test can be expressed by Allen (Allen, 1969):
have been shown in Fig. 1 (a) and (b). The relative density of the
F = 2hd B·τc (4)
regular HHC is given by
where τc is the failure strength of the honeycomb core under shear load.
8tc
ρ = · As one of two competing failure modes, shear instability in cell
3 3 lc (1)
walls will induce the shear buckling. The buckling criterion of the HHC
where tc is the thickness of the cell wall and lc is the length of the cell τcb can be expressed as (Johns, 1971):
wall. π 2Ks E1 E2 tc 3
The total deflection δ at the mid-point of sandwich beams under 3PB τcb = 2
( )
18(1 − ν12 ) lc (5)
load is shared by the face sheet bending deflections δB and honeycomb
core shearing deformation δS (Allen, 1969). The corresponding ex- where E1, E2 and ν12 are the Young modulus and Poisson's ratio of the
pression is: general orthotropic plate in the principal directions. The parameter Ks is
shear buckling coefficient, and it depends on the panel shape during cell
FL3 FL
δ = δB + δS = + wall buckling. The implicit function connected with the length-width
48(EI )eq 4(AG )eq (2) ratio of plate a and the mechanical index G12 is described by John
b E11 E22

where (EI)eq is the equivalent flexural rigidity of sandwich beams and et al (Johns, 1971). The detailed relationship between the coefficients
(AG)eq is the equivalent shear rigidity of honeycomb core. F is the load and variables (Wei et al., 2019, Johns, 1971) is shown in Fig.2. Ks
of the middle indenter. =10.5 was assumed in the equation by fixing the length-width ratio of
cell wall as 1.875.

2.1.3. Shear fracture

Shear fracture of the cell walls which competes with shear buckling
is another failure mode. It is assumed that the cell walls bear the pure
shear load. In this case, the shear strength of the HHC can be expressed
as:

−1
2 tc ⎛ 2 sin2 2θ cos2 2θ ⎞2
τcs = ·⎜ + ⎟
3 lc ⎝ σt σc τs2 ⎠ (6)

where σt and σc are the 0° tensile strength and 0° compressive strength

of CFRP laminates, respectively.

2.2. Debonding

Debonding between the HHC and face sheets is assumed to occur,

Fig. 1. a. Schematic diagram of sandwich beam under 3PB, b. Photograph of and the failure load associated with debonding failure under 3PB load
3PB test. can be calculated from:

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X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

3. 3D failure mechanism map

The failure mechanism map is a systematic way of verifying the

failure modes of sandwich beams. The regimes of the dominant failure
modes described above can be illustrated in the map. Traditional 2D
failure mechanism maps are established to study the influence of two
non-dimensional parameters on the failure modes of the sandwich
beam. However, all possible failure modes may not be revealed by only
two axes. An extra dimension is introduced to upgrade the 2D failure
mechanism map to a 3D failure mechanism map for enlarging the re-
search scope of the key parameters. It is an innovation method to cover
all possible combinations of structural parameters for systematically
studying the effect of structural parameters on the dominate failure
modes. Compared to the traditional planar failure mechanism map, the
transitional process from one failure mode to another can be directly
exhibited in the spatial domain by all possible viewpoints. Moreover,
the planar maps can be offered simultaneously as the cross section in
the spatial map. Especially, both the transversal plane parallel to the
three orthographic views and the oblique sections with a given geo-
Fig. 2. Buckling coefficient for the orthotropic plates in shear (Johns, 1971). metrical relationship can be obtained.
In this paper, a 3D failure mechanism map is constructed for all-
4 3 tad BL composite sandwich beam with HHC under 3PB load. The ratios of face
F= τad
3 lc (7) thickness to beam thickness hf/H, the ratio of face thickness to span hf/L
and core relative density ρ̄ were considered as the axes. Here, the length
where tad is the thickness of adhesive layer. Here, the parameter tad is
of the HHC cell wall lc is 8 mm and the thickness of the honeycomb core
0.2 mm. τad is J-272C adhesive strength.
hc is 15 mm.
A typical 3D failure mechanism map of all-composite honeycomb
2.3. Face sheet failure sandwich beam under 3PB load is shown in Fig. 3. Five failure modes
have been visualized in the 3D failure mechanism map, including in-
The face sheet bears most of the normal stress under 3PB load. The tracellular dimpling, face fracture, shear buckling, shear fracture, and
failure loads F associated with the face sheet failure can be estimated debonding. The range of hf/H (the ratios of face thickness to beam
from (Xiong et al., 2012): thickness) is from 0 to 0.3, the range of hf/L (the ratios of face thickness
4hf hd B to span) is from 0 to 0.01. The range of ρ̄ (the core relative density) is
F= ·σf
L (8) from 0 to 0.2. Three sectional views are also exhibited to reveal internal
details clearly. In Map 1, the sectional view located at hf / L = 1/17
where σf is the failure strength of face sheet. The predicted formulas
showes four failure modes. The dominate failure mode is core shear
transform in the wake of different face failure mechanism.
failure, which contains the shear buckling and shear fracture. De-
bonding and intracellular dimpling is likely to appear at this moment.
2.3.1. Intracellular dimpling
Face fracture isn't visualized in Map 1, as core failure is the dominant
The intracellular region of the face sheet is simplified to an inscribed
mechanism in a short span. In Map 2, four failure modes including face
circle since intercellular dimpling emerged in the middle of the hon-
fracture, shear buckling, shear fracture, and debonding are obtained in
eycomb cell. Eq. (9) (Timoshenko and Gere, 2009) predicts the in-
cross section hf / H = 7 × 10−3 with four sizable areas. In Map 3,
tracellular dimpling strength σfi:
ρ̄ = 0.08 is the function of the cross section. Shear buckling which
Ki E1 hf 2 usually occur in lower relative density doesn't appear in this sectional
σfi = ( )
2
1 − ν12 lc (9) view. Additionally, the 360°viewpoints of the 3D failure mechanism
map and three sets of changing sectional views are also supplied in the
where the parameter Ki depends on the end constraints and panel shape supplementary material (see Supplementary Movie). Above all, the 3D
during face intracellular dimpling. The face sheet is reduced to be an failure mechanism map and all kinds of sectional views ensure that the
inscribed circular panel with lateral compression in term of honeycomb failure mechanism of all-composite honeycomb sandwich beam under
configurations. According to Timoshenko's book (Timoshenko and 3PB load is comprehensive. To verify the accuracy of the constructed
Gere, 2009), the value of Ki in hexagon honeycomb is 4.89. For the failure mechanism map, corresponding experiments were carried out.
other honeycomb configurations, such as triangle or square, the value The dimensional parameters (ratio of structural geometrical para-
of Ki is higher than 4.89, as the area ratio of the honeycomb cell to meters) have been listed in Map 1~3 along with the number of design
inscribed circular is bigger. Hence, the failure mechanism map of paths 1#~6# in order to investigate each failure mode.
hexagon honeycomb has a larger intercellular dimpling region.
4. Experimental
2.3.2. Face fracture
The top face sheet of the sandwich structure sustains compression 4.1. Fabrication
under 3PB load, and face fracture appears when the compressive stress
of the CFRP panel reaches the upper limit. Under pure compression, the The tailor-folding method (Wei et al., 2019) for fabricating all-
fracture strength of the woven CFRP panel σfc with the identical or- composite HHC sandwich structure is presented in this section. The
ientation angle ply can be expressed as: honeycomb core was fabricated by plain woven carbon fiber/epoxy
−1 prepreg with 0.2 mm thickness (Toray T300-3K). The mechanical
1 + cos2 2θ sin2 2θ ⎞2
σfc = ⎜⎛ 2
+ ⎟ property of the honeycomb core depends on the configuration of hon-
⎝ 2σc 4τs 2 ⎠ (10) eycomb, the relative density and the orientation of the fibers. The

3
X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

Fig. 3. 3D failure mechanism map and sectional views.

Fig. 4. All-composite sandwich beam with HHC: (a) Schematic diagram of the fabrication process based on the tailor-folding method, (b) Photograph of fabricated
CFRP HHC.

details of the fabrication method have been shown in Fig.4 (a).
Firstly, in the tailoring step, prepregs stacked by different layers
were cut out automatically to form the predesigned slits by a cutting
machine (CB03-1311, Ningbo Jingwei CNC Equipment Co. Ltd, China).
The slits were perpendicular to the longitudinal fibers and parallel to
the transverse fibers. Secondly, CFRP prepreg with tailored slits was
folded up into a semi-hexagon corrugated sheet via mechanical means.
The orientation of the longitudinal fibers was consistent with the
folding lines. Then, the corrugated sheets were folded back and forth
along the slits and bonded together to form the honeycomb core. It is
difficult to fold thick prepreg in this step. Fortunately, the engineering
components are much more inclined to apply the honeycomb with thin
wall and low density. Finally, the composite honeycomb was filled by
polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hexagonal prism molds and cured in an
autoclave (YT-16-02, Dalian Yingtian Machinery Manufacturing Co.
Ltd, China) at a constant pressure 0.5 MPa and temperature 130°C for 2
hours. A photograph of a CFRP HHC was shown in Fig. 4 (b). After
solidifying the honeycomb core and detaching the PTFE molds, the all-

4
X. Wei, et al.
composite hexagon honeycomb sandwich beam was obtained by
sandwiching the core into the face sheets and bonding with the epoxy-
based adhesive J-272 (Heilongjiang Petrochemical Research Institute,
China) under constant pressure of 0.3 MPa and temperature 120°C for 2
hours. The face sheets of sandwich beams and the core are both man-
ufactured by the same plain woven carbon fiber/epoxy prepreg. It is
worth mentioning that the tailor-folding method only depends on a
planar material and it has an advantage in continuous preparation over
the previous preparation method. Lower fault tolerance seem to be an
important point to be improved in the manufacture process. Never-
theless, there is a great potential for the tailor-folding method to be
achieve automation using suitable materials and an optimized fabri-
cation process.
The mechanical properties of parent material were obtained
through a uniaxial tensile test (ASTM D3039/ D3039M-00), shear test
(ASTM D3518/ D3518M-13) and uniaxial compressive test (ASTM
D6641/ D6641M-09). However, the measured mechanical property of
single-ply lamina under compressive load is only half that of the thick
laminate due to local imperfections, micro-buckling and crimpling of
yarns (Feng et al., 2018, Yuan et al., 2017). The properties of woven
laminates are listed in Table 1. The obtained composite materials be-
long to transversely isotropic material.
4.2. Three-point bending tests
In this section, 3PB tests on sandwich beam specimens with dif-
ferent geometries were performed. Three-point bending test was per-
formed according to the ASTM C393-00 using a screw-driven testing
machine (INSTRON 5569). The indenter of the clamping fixture has a
15 mm wide flat central region and the diameter of the rollers is 25mm.
The nominal axial strains of sandwich beams were recorded by a laser
extensometer (Epsilon LE-05) and the applied load was measured via
the load cell of the test machine. All tests were carried out quasi-sta-
tically with a nominal displacement rate of 0.5 mm/min at room tem-
perature. For revealing each failure mode, the critical dimensions of the
specimens were elaborately chosen based on the 3D failure mechanism
map and listed in Table 2. To confirm the repeatability of the experi-
mental results, at least three repeated tests were tested on each sort of
the specimen.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Comparison between analytical and experimental results
This section provides a comparison of analytical and experimental
results of all-composite hexagon honeycomb sandwich beams under
three-point bending load. Six typical experiments were carried out to
investigate the mechanical response of the sandwich beams. Table 2
lists the critical dimension of specimens, experimental results and
analytical predictions. The experimental results of indenter deforma-
tion we selected for calculating bending stiffness were less than 1.5 mm
and far below the thickness of sandwich beams. Hence, the Equation (3)
conforms to the small deformation assumption. The dominant failure
Table 1
Mechanical properties of woven laminates (T300/epoxy composites).
Properties of standard specimens Symbol Value
0° Tensile strength (MPa) σt 536.29
0° Tensile modulus (GPa) Et 54.50
0° Compressive strength (MPa) σc 528.95
0° Compressive modulus (GPa) Ec 45.79
In-plane shear strength (MPa) τs 89.13
In-plane shear modulus (GPa) Gs 3.75
Poisson's ratio ν12 0.0638
Density(kg/m³) ρs 1437
J-272C adhesive strength (MPa) τad 22.36
5
Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401
mode was confirmed by the lowest value of the six analytical failure
models and was highlighted in bold. At the same time, the average
measurements of experimental results and observed failure modes,
which were acquired by no less than three repeated tests on each sort of
the specimens, were supplied to verify the analytical results and failure
modes. All of the failure modes selected from three-dimensional failure
mechanism map were observed by the experiments. The analytical
predictions are in good agreement with the experimental results. Most
of the error of the analytical calculation and experimental measurement
is lower than 25%. The experiment in the fourth group is an exception,
as the failure load of intracellular dimpling is not the peak load of the
specimens.
5.2. Failure modes
Five competing failure modes were predicted and observed, in-
cluding shear buckling, shear fracture, debonding, intracellular dim-
pling and face fracture. The thickness of cell walls is relevant to the
prepreg thickness. The wall thickness of some cells are twice as thick as
other walls, as prepregs are folded back and forth and bonded together
in the fabrication process. The cell walls with double thickness im-
proved the compressive property of the honeycomb, but not the shear
property. The shearing force of core is transferred along the W direction
of honeycomb. The cell walls with single thickness bear most of shear
loading and firstly fail. Hence, the cell walls with double thickness
improve the failure load of core indentation, but not effecting other
failure modes. Besides, the flat and wide square indenter was used in
the experiment. The peak loading of core indentation is higher than
shear buckling and shear fracture. Hence, core indentation didn't ob-
served in the experiments and doesn't appear in the three-dimensional
failure mechanism map. The photos of actual failure modes are shown
in Figs. 5-9. The failure modes are analyzed in detail below.
5.2.1. Shear buckling
Shear buckling was predicted and observed in the first group of the
three-point bending test. The load-displacement curves and typical
deformed configurations of the first test are shown in Fig.5. The form of
the load-displacement curve of three specimens was nearly uniform.
The initial elastic response of the beams occurred echoes instantly ac-
companying with the in-plane shear deformation in the core. When the
deformation of the middle indenter was 5 mm, the cell wall of the
honeycomb core showed the obvious out-of-plane deformation. The
shear buckling appeared in both sides of the honeycomb core. After
that, the shear deformation of the core continued with the high and
stabilized external force until fracture occurred in the core.
5.2.2. Shear fracture
The only change in the designed structural dimensions of the second
group experiment was the relative density of the core. A honeycomb
core with higher relative density ( ρ =8.28%) was designed to show the
shear fracture under three-point bending load. Fig.6 shows the shear
deformation of the core also occurred in the cell walls at the initial
elastic stage of the beams. The experimental curves rose up more and
more slowly as micro-cracks generated in the cell walls. After the failure
load, the core fractured at the deformation range from 8 mm to 16 mm.
The micro-cracks generated, expanded and grew into a large one under
shear loading. After the core failed by shear fracture, debonding oc-
curred as the cracks propagated in the adhesive layer. The final de-
formation of the tests is considered to be connected with the processing
quality of each specimen, crack initiation location during the test and
the dispersive mechanical property of composite materials.
5.2.3. Debonding
The face sheets and the honeycomb core which were strong enough
to bear the bending and shear load would result in the debonding
failure mode. As shown in Fig.7, three-point bending stiffness of the
X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

Table 2
Summary of critical dimensions, experimental (Exp.) results and analytical (Anal.) predictions.
No. Dimension L × B × hc (mm × mm × mm) hf (mm) tc (mm) ρ̄ (%) Stiffness (Nmm-1) Fail. mode & load (N) Obs. fail. mode
Anal. Exp. Anal. Exp.
1# 130 × 82.91 × 15.23 1.01 0.21 4.04 1867 1670 ± 113 SB 3680
SF 3939
DB 13914
ID 141057
FF 22133
CI 32662 3279 ± 55 SB
2# 135 × 82.89 × 15.04 0.99 0.43 8.28 3031 2274 ± 294 SB 31200
SF 7965
DB 14449
ID 126268
FF 20621
CI 66880 7446 ± 242 SF
3# 143 × 84.16 × 15.94 1.02 0.85 16.36 4656 4944 ± 60 SB 259266
SF 16938
DB 15536
ID 140015
FF 21541
CI 134197 12029 ± 240 DB
4# 135 × 83.56 × 15.55 0.22 0.40 7.70 1449 1202 ± 54 SB 26170
SF 7720
DB 14562
ID 1374
FF 4544
CI 62701 1810 ± 54 ID
5# 305 × 84.25 × 15.07 0.59 0.43 8.28 406 440 ± 14 SB 31768
SF 8110
DB 33172
ID 11744
FF 5400
CI 67961 4119 ± 166 FF
6# 305 × 84.07 × 15.25 2.08 0.42 8.09 1028 1220 ± 90 SB 29882
SF 7999
DB 33101
ID 568211
FF 21022
CI 66238 6351 ± 346 SF

The failure modes in this table are abbreviated by SB = shear buckling; SF = shear fracture; DB = debonding; ID = intercellular dimpling; FF = face fracture;
CI=core indentation.

sandwich beam gradually degenerated after the initial elastic response
of the beams. Micro-cracks generated between the face sheet and
honeycomb core, which lead to the degeneration of the adhesive layers.
Finally, the fracture happened along with the interface of the adhesive
layer and the honeycomb core while the cell walls pulled out from the
adhesive layer under the bending and shear load. After the experi-
mental curves drop down, the adhesive layer had obvious cracks and
the honeycomb walls were not fractured. But the local buckling of the
honeycomb walls generated debonding in advance.
5.2.4. Intracellular dimpling
Intracellular dimpling emerged in the face sheets located in the void
of the honeycomb cell. This failure mode usually caused by the over-
large cell size of the core or the face being too thin thickness of the face.
In Fig.8, intracellular dimpling started at the displacement of 1.5 mm.
Compared to the photograph of the beam at the displacement of 0.5
mm, the compressive face sheets randomly bulged or sunk among the
cell at the displacement of 1.5 mm. The location of the face sheets was
closer to the middle indenter, the dimpling was more obvious since the
top face sheet near the middle indenter resisted larger bending load.
Hence, the failure of the top face occurred close to the middle indenter.
However, the composite honeycomb core with the excellent in-plane
compressive property could resist the rest of the load. It is the reason
that the beams continue to bear the bending load and the load still
increases. After dimpling, local debonding between the bulged face and
the sunk face was accompanied by a slight drop in the experimental
curves. As the local debonding area extended, a penetrating fracture
between the face and core resulted in the face wrinkled within a short
time. At that time, compressive stress was released by the wrinkling
face and the top face lost the capability of bearing the load.
5.2.5. Face fracture
Face fracture usually occurred in the long span test, as the internal
stress of face sheet increased with the increase of bending moment.
Fig.9 shows the fracture of the top face occurred near the middle in-
denter in the fifth group test because of the thin face sheet. When the
face sheet was thick enough to bear the compressive load, as in the sixth
group experiment, the core shear fracture occurred. The failure mor-
phology was the same as the second test.
All of the failure modes observed above were consistent with the
modes predicted by the three-dimensional failure mechanism map.
5.3. Minimum weight design
The minimum weight design is a method for selecting the optimal
geometrical points in the design region to get either the minimum
weight within the same failure load points or the maximum failure load
within the same weight points. The optimal method was originally
constructed by plotting the contour lines of non-dimensional para-
meters (failure load indexF̄ and beam weight indexM̄ ) and collecting
the optimal points from given contour lines. The non-dimensional
failure load parameter F̄ and the non-dimensional beam weight para-
meter M̄ are expressed as
F
F¯ =
BLσc (11)

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X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

Fig. 5. Load-displacement curves and deformed configurations of the speci-

mens failed by shear buckling under three-point bending load.

¯ = M
M
BL2ρf (12) Fig. 6. Load-displacement curves and deformed configurations of the speci-
mens failed by shear fracture under three-point bending load.
where ρf is the equivalent density of CFRP face sheet. The non-dimen-
sional equations of failure loading and sandwich mass are summarized
and listed in Table 3.
The contour lines are based on the failure mechanism map since the
failure load of the beams is governed by the dominant failure mode. The
collection points form an optimum path on the failure mechanism map.
In this paper, the oblique section of H/L=1/8 in three-dimensional
failure mechanism map (as shown in Fig.10 (a)) was chosen to trace the
path. Firstly, the non-dimensional failure load parameter based on the
failure mechanism map with the axes of the relative density ρ̄ and the
ratio of face thickness to beam thickness hf/H was shown in Fig.10 (b).
The failure load parameter was going up with the increase of the re-
lative density ρ̄ and the ratio of face thickness to beam thickness hf/H.
However, the structural geometrical point with the highest ratio of
failure load to beam weight can't be found by this method.
To locate the supreme structural point in the map, the analytical
image of the non-dimensional load-weight ratio F¯ / M ¯ was drawn in
Fig.10 (c). Then, a series of a mountain ridge with the peaks and valleys
was observed between the failure modes and highlighted by the red
lines. The regions of three failure mechanisms (face failure, core failure
and debonding) were separated by the mountain ridges. Hence, the
three mountain ridges respectively denote the sufficient design in the
pairwise failure of face, core and the adhesive layer. Along the three
mountain ridges, a peak was observed in the confluence of the ridges. It
meant that the optimum geometry of the all-composite honeycomb
sandwich beam with best load-weight ratio was identified. To obtain
the optimum geometry and high efficiency region, a load-weight ratio Fig. 7. Load-displacement curves and deformed configurations of the speci-
mens failed by debonding under three-point bending load.
map with rainbow contours (as shown in Fig.10 (d)) was introduced by
failure mechanism map, the analytical predicted image of load-weight
ratio and hue function. On this map, black lines separate the different

7
X. Wei, et al.
Fig. 8. Load-displacement curves and deformed configurations of the speci-
mens failed by intracellular dumpling under three-point bending load.
Fig. 9. Load-displacement curves and deformed configurations of the speci-
mens failed by face fracture under three-point bending load.
regions of failure modes, and red arrows along the black lines trace the
fork-type path of maximum load design in a series of structural geo-
metrical parameters with the same beam weight. The trunk of the fork-
type path indicates the sufficient design of face and core, especially the
8
Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401
Table 3
Summary of non-dimensional equations.
x = hf / H y = hf / L z = ρ̄
F¯SB = cSB·(x −1 − 1) yz 3 π 2K s E1 E2
cSB = 0.03 2 ) σc
(1 − ν12
τ
F¯SF = cSF ·(x −1 − 1) yz cSF = 0.87 s
σc
F¯DB = cDB t τ
cDB = 2.31 ad ad
lc σc
F¯ID = cID·x (1 − x ) y 2 K E H2
cID = 4 i 12 2
(1 − ν12) lc
F¯FF = cFF ·(x −1 − 1) y cFF = 4
M¯ = (x −1z − 2z + 2) y
part of the path between shear fracture and face fracture which is
marked with large arrows, and expressed high efficiency in load-weight
ratio. The path between shear fracture and face fracture is expressed as
ρ¯ σ H
= 4.62 c ·
hf / H τs L (13)
The branches of the fork-type path come into being due to the de-
bonding in the adhesive layer. The bifurcation represents the optimum
point with the supreme load-weight ratio, the value of which reaches up
to 0.065. On the map, the optimum point is located at (0.04, 0.13) and
marked by a red pentagram. After this point, the efficiency of the load-
weight ratio goes down as the non-dimensional beam weight goes up. A
triangular region with the high load-weight ratio is observed around the
optimum point. In conclusion, the beam with the supreme load-weight
ratio is the structure which can give full play to each component, in-
cluding the face, core and the adhesive layer. The several groups of
experiments are added into the load-weight ratio map to verify the
minimum weight design. As shown in Fig.10 (e), the experimental re-
sults is consistent with theoretical analysis. It indicate that the struc-
tural points closer to the optimum one possess higher load-weight ratio.
This method is of significance for lightweight design in aircraft appli-
cations.
6. Conclusions
In this work, the three-point bending response of the all-composite
honeycomb sandwich beam was investigated by analytical prediction
and experimental test. The tailor-folding method is presented to fabri-
cate all-composite sandwich beam with hexagon honeycomb core. A
three-dimensional failure mechanism map was created to reveal the
transitional process from one failure mode to another visually and
comprehensively in the spatial domain. The map was constructed by
the analytical models, which considered six kinds of failure modes in-
cluding intracellular dimpling, face fracture, core indentation, shear
buckling, shear fracture and debonding. Three-point bending test was
carried out to verify the analytical models. The three-point bending
stiffness and failure load obtained by experiments are in good agree-
ment with the analytical prediction. All of the failure modes selected
from three-dimensional failure mechanism map were observed by the
tests. Besides, a method was discussed for finding the optimal structural
geometry of the beam which possessed the maximum load-weight ratio
within the same weight points. An optimum geometry of the beam with
the supreme load-weight ratio was found in the oblique section H/
L=1/8 of the three-dimensional failure mechanism map and verified by
experiments. The present work is useful for designing the sandwich
beam with lightweight and multifunctional applications.
7. Author Agreement
We confirmed the following items:
[1] The paper is not concurrently submitted for publication else-
where.
X. Wei, et al. Mechanics of Materials 148 (2020) 103401

Fig. 10. Optimum geometry of all-composite honeycomb sandwich beam for best load-weight ratio: (a) the oblique section of H/L=1/8 in three-dimensional failure
mechanism map, (b) Analytical predicted image of non-dimensional load, (c) Analytical predicted image of load-weight ratio, (d) An optimum point with supreme
load-weight ratio and the path of maximum load design traced in a series of structural geometrical parameters on rainbow contour map, (e) the bar graph of
analytical and experimental results of load-weight ratio.

[2] The paper, in its entirety, in part, or in a modifies version, has
not been published elsewhere.
[3] The paper has not previously been submitted for possible pub-
lication elsewhere.
[4] We disclosed all the financial and personal relationships with
other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence
(bias) their work in the acknowledgement and author lists.
Sincerely,
Weixingyu, Qianqian Wu, Ying Gao, Jian Xiong
Address: Center for Composite Materials, Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin 150001, PR China
E-mail: jx@hit.edu.cn
Tel: +86 0451 86402376
Fax: +86 0451 86402376
Declaration of Conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Acknowledgements
This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant No. 11572100. JX was supported by
Program for Outstanding Young Scholars in Harbin Institute of
Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang
Province (YQ2019A003), the Science and Technology on Advanced
Composites in Special Environment Laboratory and Young Elite
Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST (YESS20160190). The authors
are also grateful to Prof. John Summerscales for revising the manuscript
before publication.
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