Abstract: Carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRP) have excellent mechanical properties, especially cushioning energy absorption properties. The structure type of the composite material products has a great influence on the mechanical properties, and a reasonable structural shape can better utilize the energy absorption and specific energy absorption potential of the composite material. The hexagonal column honeycomb structure of honey bees has been naturally selected to have good load-bearing stability. Bionic honeycomb structure, the periodic hexagonal cylinder honeycomb structure was prepared by assembling and bonding the single plates together, in which the single plate was obtained by vacuum hot-pressing method using T700 prepreg through a combination mold. The quasi-static impact experiments of the single plate were carried out by universal electronic material testing machine, and the progressive failure and delamination damage mechanisms were analyzed. To better simulate the impact failure behavior of the composite honeycomb structure, a damage mechanism that simultaneously considers both the intralaminar and interlaminar damage mechanisms of the CFRP laminate was proposed based on the continuum medium damage mechanics, and the incremental constitutive model in finite element form was developed, whose prediction results match well with the experimental results and verifies the feasibility of the finite element method. On this basis, simulations of the honeycomb structure were carried out to discuss the impact response of the honeycomb structure and analyze the failure modes and energy absorption effects under impact loading. The results of this paper demonstrate the stability and energy absorption characteristics of the honeycomb structure, which provides a reference for the design and application of CFRP structures in cushioning energy absorption engineering.

Key words: composite, honeycomb structure, damage mechanism, progressive failure, cushioning energy absorption