Energy-absorption characteristics of a bionic honeycomb tubular nested structure inspired by bamboo under axial crushing

Geometric configurations in nature could be mimicked in order to develop novel materials and structures with desirable properties. Lots of bio-inspired configurations had been introduced to tubal structures in promoting the energy-absorption performance of thin-walled structures. Nevertheless, these existing studies largely focused on hierarchical hexagonal honeycombs, and the bio-inspired hierarchical circular thin-walled structures under the out-of-plane crushing loads had not been well studied experimentally, numerically and analytically for energy absorption to date. In this study, the bionic honeycomb tubular nested structure (BHTNS) was first inspired by the micro-architecture of bamboo vascular bundles, which could be mimicked by connecting a central circular tube to other six circular tubes in a hexagonal arrangement, regardless of size or choice of materials. The energy-absorption characteristics of BHTNS under axial crushing were systematically studied by drop-weight experiment, numerical simulation, and theoretical analysis. Dynamic drop-weight impact experiments were conducted and the results showed that the specific energy absorption (SEA) of BHTNS was as high as 29.3 J/g. Furthermore, the parametric numerical simulation revealed the influence of diverse mean diameter D of the circular tube and length L of the junction plate on the energy-absorption characteristics. Finally, a theoretical model was also developed to predict the mean crush force Pm, which was in good agreement with the numerical simulation. This work could provide a reference for an energy-absorber design with high efficiency.