Experimental study on the damage of hexagonal honeycombs under in–plane shear loading does not appear to be available in the literature. In this paper, shear damage behaviors of five different hexagonal mesostructures are investigated with rapid prototyped polycarbonate (PC) honeycomb coupon samples and proper design of a fixture for shear loading. Effective shear stress-strain curves of PC honeycomb coupons are generated for each shear test and the corresponding local cell wall failure is investigated. Two different failure modes of PC honeycombs were observed primarily depending on the cell wall thickness: The PC honeycombs having a lower cell wall thickness induce the plastic post buckling, resulting in preventing propagation of initial cracks through the cell wall end up with higher plastic load bearing. On the other hand, the failure mode of the honeycombs having a high cell wall thickness is the cell wall fracture by crack propagation through wall without severe buckling.

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