A statistical failure initiation model for honeycomb materials

In the current study, a statistical failure initiation model for honeycomb materials is proposed. The model describes the failure initiation in macroscopic normal-shear stress space. The workflow of the model is explained in three stages: micromechanical model, simulation experiments under external macro-stresses and boundary conditions, and analysis of the experiment results. In the micromechanical model, the heterogeneous nature of the material is described with the geometrical parameters which are irregularity and scale and their variations. Based on these parameters, samples are designed and simulation experiments are conducted. The experiment results are linked to possible failure mechanisms in order to obtain the critical macroscopic stresses which are expressed in terms of cumulative distribution functions. Further investigations on these functions with the weakest link theory and Weibull distribution lead to understand and quantify the effects of the geometrical parameters on the failure initiation characteristic in a statistical manner. As a result of these investigations, the statistical model describing the failure initiation of honeycomb materials is presented as functions of the irregularity and scale in macroscopic stress space.