Determination of Honeycomb Material Properties: Existing Theories and an Alternative Dynamic Approach

This paper examines several available analytic and experimental methods to determine the orthotropic material properties of honeycomb. Fifteen published sets of simple equations for the material properties were reviewed and their values calculated for a specific honeycomb aluminum core. The same core was tested with ASTM standard methods and the agreement between the theoretical material properties and the experimental results was considered. To reduce the time and cost for the experimental determination, a simple technique for measuring the main dynamic material properties of honeycomb is introduced. A good agreement was found between the major theoretical out-of-plane material properties of honeycomb, the experimental ASTM methods, and the presented dynamic approach.