Abstract: In practical applications, wave-absorbing honeycomb sandwich structures are prone to issues such as delamination, debonding, and impact damage of the wave-transmitting skin, which in turn affect their electromagnetic wave absorption performance. Based on an optimally designed wave-absorbing honeycomb sandwich structure, this paper establishes simulation analysis models incorporating different typical damages. It analyzes the impact of damage forms such as delamination of the wave-transmitting skin, skin-honeycomb debonding, and skin damage on the absorption performance. The applicability of the research results under different damage shapes, electromagnetic wave incidence angles, and polarization modes is verified. Finally, a theoretical model of wave-absorbing honeycomb sandwich structures with delamination, debonding, and skin damage is established, and the mechanism by which these damages affect the structural absorption performance is discussed in detail. The research results indicate that delamination and debonding damages have little impact on the absorption performance of the wave-absorbing honeycomb sandwich structure at low frequencies, and even enhance the absorption performance at high frequencies. When the damage diameter reaches 100 mm, the effective absorption bandwidth of the structure is reduced by up to 0.06 GHz; damage to the wave-transmitting skin disrupts the impedance matching characteristics of the structure, causing the absorption peak to shift towards higher frequencies, leading to a significant decrease in absorption performance at mid-to-high frequencies. When the damage diameter reaches 60 mm, the effective absorption bandwidth of the structure is reduced by 0.6 GHz, and the average reflectivity increases by 0.6 dB.

Key words: wave-absorbing honeycomb sandwich structure, typical structural damage, absorption performance, damage evaluation, impedance mismatch