Honeycomb Sandwich Material Modeling for Dynamic Simulations of Aircraft Interior Components

An approach for modeling sandwich structures with a Nomex® honeycomb core and phenolic composite faces in the commercial finite element code LS-DYNA with solid elements for the core and shell elements for the thin faces is presented, which accounts for the major sandwich failure modes. Extensive material testing was conducted to determine the parameters for the composite face material model and for the orthotropic honeycomb material model. Strain rate dependency of the material parameters as well as face-to-core debonding phenomena were also investigated and included in the model. In order to design aircraft interior components for dynamic loads, finite element models of lateral and center bins of a widebody aircraft cabin were created and simulations of different load cases were performed. A good correlation to experimental dynamic test results could be achieved.