Composite energy-absorbing structures combining thin-walled metal and honeycomb structures

Abstract

The energy-absorbing structure of a crashworthy railway vehicle was designed by combining the characteristics of thinwalled metal structures and aluminum honeycomb structures: finite element models of collisions involving energyabsorbing structures were built in ANSYS/LS-DYNA. In these models, the thin-walled metal structure was modeled as a plastic kinematic hardening material, and the honeycomb structure was modeled as an equivalent solid model with orthotropic-anisotropic mechanical properties. The analysis showed that the safe velocity standard for rail vehicle collisions was improved from 25 km/h to 45 km/h by using a combined energy-absorbing structure; its energy absorption exceeded the sum of the energy absorbed by the thin-walled metal structure and honeycomb structure when loaded separately, because of the interaction effects of thin-walled metal structure and aluminum honeycomb structure. For an aluminum honeycomb to the same specification, the composite structure showed the highest SEA when using a thinwalled metal structure composed of bi-grooved tubes, followed by that using single-groove tubes: that with a straightwalled structure had the lowest SEA.

Crashworthiness optimisation of a composite energy-absorbing structure for subway vehicles based on hybrid particle swarm optimisation

“…They found that deformation mode evolution of the honeycomb-filled thin-walled square tube (HFST) structures is closely related to the structural geometric configuration. Zhou et al (2017) designed the energy-absorbing structure of a crashworthy railway vehicle by combining the characteristics of thin-walled metal structures and aluminium honeycomb structures, and they discussed the safe velocity standard for rail vehicle collisions, which was improved from 25 km/h to 45 km/h by adopting a combined energy-absorbing structure. Hussein et al (2017) Basically, the main challenge in the crashworthiness design and development of subway vehicles is how to find the optimal design of an EAS that can satisfy best the crashworthiness requirements.…”

Investigation on the Energy-Absorbing Properties of Bionic Spider Web Structure

“…The mechanical properties of biological structures have attracted great interest. Among the numerous energy-absorbing structures, spider webs have stood out for their high strength and energy-absorbing performance [1][2][3]. The primary function of spider webs is to withstand strong impact forces and absorb the kinetic energy brought by prey, preventing its escape.…”

Lightweight optimization of the front end structure of an automobile body using entropy-based grey relational analysis

“…For instance, the following have been exhaustively investigated in the literature: single-cell structures, 24,25 multi-cell structures, 26,27 foam-filled structures, [28][29][30][31] functionally graded structures, 12,13 tailor-welded structures, 32,33 tailor-rolled structures, 34,35 top-hat structures, 33,36 and composite structures. 37,38 Nevertheless, note that lightweight and crashworthiness normally conflict with each other. In other words, any improvement of one criteria signifies the sacrifice of the other, and vice versa.…”