Tandem design is promising to improve the undesired compressive behavior of honeycomb for the long-stroke demand. Therefore, a novel tandem honeycomb, named tandem face-centered hierarchical honeycomb (TFCHH), is developed to achieve the perfect load-bearing process. The deformation mechanism of TFCHH is revealed by the compressive experiments, which dissipates energy by progressive folding and demonstrates a multi-stage plateau response. The numerical research is conducted to explore the compressive properties of TFCHH. It is observed that the energy absorption and load-bearing stability of TFCHH is 23.04 % and 38.24 % higher than those of integrated face-centered hierarchical honeycomb. To approach the perfect load-bearing behavior of TFCHH, the matching strategy of hierarchy order and relative density is investigated to fully exploit the compressive potential of hierarchical honeycomb components. As a result, the optimal load-bearing capacities of hierarchical honeycomb components with the hierarchy order from 1 to 3 are obtained when the relative densities are 16.6 %, 15.0 %, and 11.2 %. The customized design on the load-bearing behavior of TFCHH demonstrates that altering the stacking sequence can control the deformation sequence of hierarchical honeycomb components, and adjusting the composition proportion can tailor the effective stroke of the desired plateau stress. By establishing the theoretical relationship between the plateau force and configuration parameters, it is found that the load-bearing behavior of TFCHH is accurately predicted with the dynamic correction coefficient of 1.4.
