Honeycomb Cores: Nature’s Guide to Innovative Engineering

Have you ever really looked at a beehive? The cells are hexagonal, so uniform, designed to be immensely strong, but light, providing superb insulation and storage. For centuries, humans have been mimicking designs found in nature. Today, engineers are basing designs on the honeycomb to create advanced materials that can be used for everything from airplanes and satellites to high-speed trains and everyday items. Known as honeycomb core, the people at Axiom Material explain that it is truly a model of extreme strength and minimal weight for modern engineering.

What is Honeycomb Core?

Think of a sandwich made from a unique substance. The honeycomb core is the filling. Engineers then use multiple thin and strong “skins” or “facings” that are made from aluminum, carbon fiber, or fiberglass. The “bread” part in this sandwich are the “skins” that cover the honeycomb core. The most important part of the system is the hexagonal shaped cells, which absorb and distribute force across the surface area effectively. So when you take a flat surface you are pushing down on, the load of the force is being concentrated at the weakest point where that contact is made. Using a honeycomb core increases the surface area, distributing the force across many small walls inside the honeycomb, resulting in exceptional stiffness for bending or crushing loads.

Why Engineers Love This Design

Engineers love honeycomb core for one main reason – the incredible strength-to-weight ratio. This essentially gets you a lot of strength without the bulk or weight. Consider an airplane. Every additional pound has a real cost in fuel use. By utilizing the honeycomb structure for aircraft floor panels, wing structures, and interior panels, an aircraft is lighter, can fly more efficiently and has the ability to carry more cargo or passengers. This results in saving on fuel costs and improving fuel efficiency in an environmentally friendly way.

Besides being very light and strong, honeycomb cores are also particularly good at absorbing energy, which is a benefit in application where impact protection is desired. Picture a car part designed to cushion a crash. The honeycomb structure can deform and absorb the impact, protecting what is inside. Moreover, they exhibit strong insulation capabilities, particularly in regulating temperature and sound, which are important for structures or vehicles that are susceptible to these elements. The nature of the precise and repeating pattern for honeycomb cores also allows for accurate and repeatable manufacturing.

From Airplanes to Everyday Items

The applications for honeycomb cores are unbelievably diverse. In the aerospace industry, honeycomb core structures are abundant – we see them in fuselage panels, wing structures, cargo bay floors and even on parts of rockets. And of course, weight is everything in a flying structure. On the ground, we see them used in relatively high-speed transportation modalities such as trains and racing cars for the floor structures and even body panels to make them lighter, faster and safer. Honeycomb cores are also found in modern doors and furniture to optimize weight versus rigidity. The hidden power of this remarkable material has is changing the way products are manufactured in a number of application spaces.

Conclusion

Just as honeybees have been perfecting their hexagon shape for millions of years, engineers are continuing the trend of finding new ways to use this amazing shape for modern applications. As we look for stronger, lighter, and more sustainable materials to meet growing demands, honeycomb will remain at the forefront of engineering-related uses. With all the advancement in technology, we can expect to see more examples in which honeycomb design helps us create our future. Sometimes, the best solutions are those designs that exist in nature.