Plastic collapse of cellular structures comprised of doubly tapered struts

In this paper, micro-structural models are developed to examine the effects of tapered strut morphology on the plastic collapse of cellular structures. The analytical models are for materials that fail by plastic yielding and cover several types of columnar structure (e.g. hexagonal and square honeycombs, and hexagonal and rhombic cellular materials of rod-like columnar structure). The results indicate that the plastic collapse of hexagonal cellular materials is dependent not only on the relative density but also on the strut morphology. The presence of taper in struts can increase or decrease the plastic collapse strength of cellular materials, depending on the strut morphology. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.