Mechanical Behaviour of Compression in Plane of Self-similar Honeycomb Structures of SLM Titanium Alloys

Self-similar hierarchical honeycomb structure has complex unit topological structure, it is the promising future for the lightweight sandwich structure, for it has excellent structural efficiency in mitigating damage. The planar compression characteristics of Ti-6 Al-4V alloy hierarchical honeycomb structure were studied by using selective laser melting method under large deformation conditions. The results show that comparing to the traditional structure, the first-order self-similar honeycomb structure has a higher compressive strength and elastic modulus. With the increase of the relative density and the number of stratification, the unit-wall shows a more obvious failure mechanism dominating by brittle fracture. The plane failure of the layered honeycomb structure is mainly controlled by the bending, axial compression and shear deformation of the original cell wall. The research can benefit the development of high-performance hierarchical honeycomb heterogeneous material’s characteristics, and the related structural design and optimization.