Creep of hexagonal honeycombs with Plateau borders

The creep of hexagonal honeycombs with non-uniform thickness cell edges is analyzed and presented here. In the paper, the non-uniform cross-section of cell edges is taken to be a Plateau border and the solid making up the cell edges of hexagonal honeycombs is assumed to obey power law creep. A repeating element, composed of three cell edges connected at a vertex with Plateau borders of constant radius and width, is employed to calculate the creep strain rate of hexagonal honeycombs. Analytical results indicate that the creep strain rate of hexagonal honeycombs depends on their relative density and cell geometry, the imposed stress and the creep parameters of solid cell edges. Effects of the solid distribution in cell edges and the creep parameters of solid cell edges on the creep strain rate of hexagonal honeycombs are evaluated. In addition, the microstructure coefficient and exponent constant in the theoretical expression for describing the creep strain rate of regular hexagonal honeycombs are modified to account for the effect of solid distribution in cell edges.