Energy absorption of an egg-box material

Conical frustra made from leaded gun-metal have been compressed axially. Collapse is either by a travelling plastic hinge or by tearing. An analytical model is developed for the travelling plastic hinge in a rigid, ideally plastic solid; its predictions are compared with the observed response, and with those of an axisymmetric finite element analysis. The travelling hinge mechanism is also observed in the compressive collapse of an egg-box material comprising a square array of conical frustra. Collapse mechanism maps are constructed for the egg-box material, and they show the regimes of dominance of elastic buckling, material tearing and the travelling plastic hinge. The maps are useful for selecting egg-box geometries that maximise the energy absorption per unit mass at any prescribed value of collapse stress. The optimisation indicates that the egg-box material has a similar energy absorption capacity to that of hexagonal honeycombs and is superior to that of metal foams. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.