A study on ballistic performance of origami sandwich panels

Sandwich structures with origami cores have shown great potential for engineering applications. However, few studies have been performed on the ballistic performance of origami sandwich panels, particularly on their plastic deformation and ballistic resistance. In this study, rectangular metallic sandwich panels with aluminium origami cores were manufactured. Quasi-static indentation and ballistic impact tests were conducted to explore their ballistic performance. Three different shapes of indenters were considered: flat-ended, hemispherical-nosed and conical-nosed. Plastic deformation and energy absorption capacities were observed and analysed. Subsequently, finite element (FE) simulations using Ansys/Ls-dyna were executed to compare the ballistic performance of sandwich panels with origami cores and honeycomb cores. Parametric studies were also conducted to examine the effect of wall thickness, cell edge length and cell number of origami cores on the ballistic performance of origami sandwich panels.