I have designed an impact attenuator for a formula student car in Solidworks but I am having trouble meshing and analysing the assembly due to the high number of elements and the complicated structure of the honeycomb.
I have attempted this with the solid accurate model, and with a model made from shell elements (where the foil thickness is taken into account for calculations but not modelled).
Even on the best computers at my university the analysis fails in both solidworks and in Autodesk mechanical Algor, due to Jacobian errors, which I believe is due to too many elements.
Does anybody have any experience modelling and testing honeycomb like this?
The honeycomb used is the 19.1mm from easy composites.
Another idea I have had is to forget the honeycomb pattern, and create the assembly from solid blocks with the properties of the aluminium honeycomb, however this requires me to input value for the youngs modulus and poissons ratio etc which I am having difficulty obtaining.
Any advice or feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated. I can attatch an image of the attenuator so it is easier to understand.