Abstract: To improve the flexural properties of Beetle Elytron Plates (BEPs) and clarify the effect of the transition arcs (chamfers) between the skins and the trabeculae, the chamfers were set in BEPs, and then the influence of the chamfer on BEPs’ mechanical properties was investigated via experimentation and the Finite Element Method simulation (FEM). The results indicate that the influence of the chamfer on the flexural properties and ductility was most obvious in the Trabecular Beetle Elytron Plates (TBEPs), less obvious in the Honeycomb Plates (HPs) and basically no effect was observed on End-trabecular Beetle Elytron Plates (EBEPs). The chamfer can improve the mechanical stability of EBEPs. As the chamfer diameter increased in the BEPs, the length of the residual trabecular root on the skin increased when failure occurred in the TBEPs. The crack position in the honeycomb walls of the HPs gradually shifted from the skin to the center. The EBEPs continued to exhibit oblique cracks. From the perspective of the force characteristics of these BEPs, combined with numerical simulation, the influence mechanism of the chamfer on their flexural properties was investigated.

Key words: beetle elytron, beetle elytron plate, sandwich plate, flexural properties, chamfer