Negative Poissons Ratio (Auxetic) Honeycomb Cores for Morphing Wings.

W. Miller1, C.W. Smith1, F.L. Scarpa2, K.E. Evans1.

1. 2. School of Engineering Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Exeter, EX4 4QF, Exeter, UK. Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Bristol, BS8 1TR, Bristol, UK.

KEYWORDS: Negative Poissons ratio, Chiral, Honeycomb, Multifunctional, Piezoceramic. Auxetic materials (materials with a negative Poissons ratio) display the counter intuitive behaviour of laterally expanding when stretched and contracting when compressed. By engineering the Poissons ratio of the cores it is possible to control the deformation behaviour of the sandwich structure in the off axis from applied loads, eg a passively encoded aeroelastic response. In this paper we consider auxetic honeycomb cores consisting of chiral units of cylinders and tangentially attached ribs. Auxetic structures have exceptionally high in-plane shear stiffness making them ideal for honeycomb cores and they have been shown to give synclastic curvature; that is they form domes rather than saddle structures, potentially providing interesting new manufacturing routes for curved panels. Chiral structures display rotative symmetry, but not reflective symmetry, i.e. they are not super-imposable on their mirror image. The chiral structures were developed to provide greater performance and design flexibility when compared to conventional honeycomb cores, with cylinders providing improved buckling resistance and interconnecting ribs providing shear strength. Uncoupling these two properties allows a greater degree of design flexibility and improved performance through improved tailoring of honeycomb performance. The chiral structures also allow the structure to be either isotropic or anisotropic in plane allowing further tailoring of the honeycomb properties. In this work we characterise a selection of novel honeycomb structures and show that using auxetic chiral honeycomb cores provide significant advantages over conventional honeycombs. We have also embedded piezo ceramic patches into the honeycomb ribs; these can act as both sensors and actuators, providing the possibility of damage sensing and structural actuation for the honeycomb core. In this work we present finite element and mechanical test results for the in plane and out of plane behaviour of the proposed systems, including the Poissons ratio, modulus of elasticity, buckling strength and shear modulus.