Lightweight honeycomb furniture panels with discreetly located strengthening blocks

Furniture manufacturers indicate they know the benefits of lightweight honeycomb panels but still expect their higher mechanical properties. This work presents a numerical and experimental approach to designing new tables manufactured of paper honeycomb panels with discreetly arranged reinforcing blocks in the core. The main goal was to determine whether the discrete arrangement of the blocks affects the strength and amount of energy absorbed by the newly designed tables and stiffness of honeycomb panels. Optimization reduced the weight of the panels by up to 30 %. At the same time, their linear elastic modulus was increased from 1579 MPa to 1771 MPa. After ten load cycles, tables with discrete reinforcements have a stiffness up 86.85–87.20 % of the stiffness of the reference table. After destructive tests up 89.96–91.16 %. Ultimately, the test results demonstrate the effectiveness of replacing wide slats with discreetly placed reinforcing blocks in the core structure.