Compressive and tensile behaviours of 3D hybrid auxetic-honeycomb lattice structures

Lattice structures have the potential for application in tensile conditions. However, limited studies have addressed tensile behaviours of such structures and compared them with their compressive behaviours. In this paper, re-entrant structure as the foundation was selected to develop new 3D hybrid auxetic honeycomb lattice structures, each characterized by a unique unit cell configuration that features interconnected centre auxetic honeycomb, differentiating it from 2D hybrid auxetic honeycomb structures. A series of uniaxial quasi-static tensile and compressive tests, followed by simulations were conducted on these structures to investigate and compare their energy absorption characteristics. The results show that there were significant differences between these structures in terms of their mechanical behaviours under tension and compression. Especially, the smallest value of energy absorption under tensile load was 86% higher than the largest value under compressive load. The stiffnesses of these lattice structures under tensile loading were about 84–122 times of those of the identical corresponding structures when they were compressed. Meanwhile, the progressive stretching, buckling and collapse mechanisms observed in these structures exhibited excellent stiffnesses and energy absorptions under tensile and compressive load compared to traditional 3D auxetic as the basic structure. The outer frame structure of lattice structures had a direct influence on Poisson's ratio. The work indicates that the stiffness and energy absorption of the traditional 3D auxetic structure can be enhanced by embedding auxetic and honeycomb umbrella shaped elements.