The Efficiency of Auxetic Cores in Sandwich Beams Subjected to Low-Velocity Impact

This paper experimentally investigates the behavior of sandwich beam with auxetic core subjected to low-velocity impact loading. Two types of sandwich beams with different topologies of auxetic cellular cores were produced. Furthermore, a test procedure involving a cylindrical impactor was developed, and a parametric study was designed and performed. The results revealed that, at the same level of impact energy, the peak load decreased by increasing the re-entrant angle would make the auxetic, sample with the highest re-entrant angle an ideal candidate for protective applications. However, in other applications where the structure needs to be protected from damage at a higher level of impact energy, the auxetic sample with the lowest re-entrant angle exhibited the best performance due to the highest amount of failure energy. Finally, the results showed that once the core structure changed from the conventional to auxetic, the energy level leading to damage to the structure increased so that it was escalated by a factor of 2 in the auxetic sample compared to the conventional sample. This is due to the negative Poisson's ratio effect of structure that makes unit cells be drawn into the projectile impact area and, in turn, the structure is strengthened.