Stainless steel square honeycombs have been manufactured by slotting together steel
sheets and then brazing the assembly. Their out-of-plane shear response is measured
as a function of the relative density of the honeycomb and of the direction of shearing
with respect to the material axes of the square honeycomb. The response is nearly
isotropic with the shear strength and reasonably insensitive to the loading
direction. In contrast to the out-of-plane compressive response, the shear
response is monotonically hardening and the shear strength scales linearly with
relative density. A simple analytical model based upon uniform deformation of
the cell walls is in good agreement with the measured shear behavior at
low shear strains, and predicts the onset of wrinkling of the cell walls to
reasonable accuracy. Finite element (FE) calculations are accurate up to
large values of shear strain, and reveal that the shear strength of the square
honeycombs is relatively insensitive to the ratio of honeycomb height to cell size.
The shear strength of square honeycombs compares favorably with other
competing sandwich core topologies such as pyramidal and corrugated truss
cores.