Out-of-Plane Compression Behaviour of Aluminum Alloy Large-Scale Super-Stub Honeycomb Cellular Structures

The out-of-plane compression behaviour of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy super-stub honeycomb cellular structures without and with friction stir welding (FSW) facesheets are presented in this paper. A total of twelve axially compressed experiments on large-scale specimens, six with square hollow section (SHS) cores and six with hexagonal hollow section (HHS) cores, were conducted, with failure modes, ultimate resistances and axial load-end shortening curves analysed. The accuracy of finite element (FE) models was validated in accordance with test results. The numerical data obtained from extensive parametric analyses combined with test data were subsequently used to evaluate the applicability of existing design rules in Chinese, European and American aluminium alloy specifications. The results showed that the three specifications generally yielded very conservative predictions for the out-of-plane compression resistances of SHS and HHS super-stub honeycomb cores without and with FSW facesheets by about 30–37%. Design recommendations on the cross-section effective thickness are finally proposed and shown to provide much more accurate and consistent predictions than current design methods. The research results are beneficial to the application and development of large-scale super-stub honeycomb structures in structural engineering, such as the helicopter landing platforms, the base of fluid and gas tanks and ship decks.