Honeycomb refers to bioinspired patterns that provide a lightweight design for energy absorbing structures. Honeycomb design can be found in different structural biological components such as spongy bone and plant vasculature. Biologically inspired honeycomb structures include Kelvin, Weaire and Floret honeycomb (see Figure 2); each with a slightly different structure in comparison to the natural hexagonal honeycomb. These variations on the biological design have yielded significantly improved energy absorption results in comparison to traditional hexagonal honeycomb biofoam.
Due to these increased energy absorption performances, honeycomb inspired structures are being researched for use inside vehicle crumple zones. By using honeycomb structures as the inner core and surrounding the structure with a more rigid structural shell, these components can absorb impact energy during a crash and reduce the amount of energy the driver experiences.