Ballistic resistance of a novel re-entrant auxetic honeycomb under in-plane high-velocity impact

Due to their high load-bearing capacity and excellent energy dissipation properties, metal honeycomb lightweight sandwich panels are commonly utilized as highly efficient weight-saving components in the automotive, aerospace, and military industries. Especially the auxetic honeycomb sandwich panels have higher yield strength, more robust shear modulus, fracture toughness, less fatigue expansion, and higher vibration and energy absorption. In this paper, the ballistic resistance and energy absorption mechanisms of a novel re-entrant auxetic honeycomb (RSH) sandwich panel are investigated. The ballistic limits and energy absorption of the re-entrant star-shaped honeycomb (RSH), star-shaped honeycomb (SSH), and re-entrant star-shaped honeycomb (RH) sandwich panels are compared and analyzed, as well as the deformation mechanism during projectile penetration. The results show that the RSH sandwich panel has the best in-plane ballistic performance among the three types of honeycomb sandwich panels. For the same relative density, the ballistic limit of the RSH sandwich panel is 17.4% and 7.1% higher than that of the SSH and RH sandwich panels respectively. In addition, the effects of different design parameters on the ballistic resistance of RSH sandwich panels are investigated by changing the panel thickness, the relative density of the core layer, the cell angle and the cell size. It can be concluded that increasing the thickness of the face sheet is more effective in improving the ballistic limit (perforation energy) of the RSH with a thinner core layer. However, increasing the relative density of the core layer is more effective in enhancing the ballistic limit (perforation energy) for thicker core layers. Cell size has a significant effect on the ballistic resistance of RSH sandwich panels compared to cell angle, especially at impact velocities close to the ballistic limit.