Optimum design of partially tapered rectangular thin-walled tubes in axial crushing

Abstract

Straight and tapered thin-walled tubes of rectangular cross-section have been well established as impact energy absorbers under axial loading. This paper investigates the energy absorption capacity and peak transmitted load of partially tapered rectangular tubes. It is shown that these characteristics are notably affected by such design variables as the taper angle and the length of the tapered section. A simulation-based approach is proposed for the fast determination of the optimum geometry of partially tapered tubes. The approach is based on the numerical prediction of the tube's load—deflection response in dynamic loading for various values of design parameters within their respective ranges, followed by a neural net approximation of the finite element (FE) model. The verified neural model would then be used in a multiobjective optimization algorithm that would find Pareto optimal solutions to the design problem. Each solution would be characterized by a non-dominated compromise between maximizing the energy absorption capacity and minimizing the peak impact load.

Oblique Impact on Crashworthiness: Review

“…In the other hand, Structural optimization is also being interest nowadays to seek for the optimal design. Latest optimal design works are found to seek for multi-comer columns [31], foam-filled beam , conical frusta [38], partially tapered rectangular tubes [39], and multi-cell sections [40].…”

“…Yang & Qi [51] and Djamaluddin et al [52] studied on conventional tube filling with filler, both result showed the filled tube works better than the empty tube. In addition, a multi-objective optimization design (MOD) method was employed for the crashworthiness design of multi-cell thin-walled tubes [39,[53][54]. The study shows that conical tube has ability to withstand oblique impact as effectively as axial impact and energy absorption capability of filled tube is better compared to empty tube.…”

Investigation on Microstructure of Beetle Elytra and Energy Absorption Properties of Bio-Inspired Honeycomb Thin-Walled Structure under Axial Dynamic Crushing

“…Thin-walled structures with different cross-sectional shapes have obviously differences on the mechanical behavior. From single tube to multiple tubes, configuration such as square tube [ 10 , 11 ], circular tube [ 12 , 13 ], rectangular tube [ 14 , 15 , 16 ], pyramidal tube [ 17 ], hexagonal tube [ 18 , 19 ], and conical tube [ 20 , 21 ] have been researched widely. The thin-walled structure with cross-sectional shapes including 12-sided and 16-sided star have also been investigated in previous works [ 22 ].…”

Numerical analysis of the impact resistance in aluminum alloy bi-tubular thin-walled structures designs inspired by beetle elytra

“…Four simple geometries such as hexagon, octagon, 12-sided, and 16-sided star have been already evaluated from an experimental point of view [6], and the results have shown that an increase in the number of inward corners tends to improve the energy absorption capabilities. Other geometries have also been extensively studied, such as circular [7,8], square [9,10], rectangular [11,12,13], hexagonal [14,15,16], pyramidal [17]and conical tubes [18,19,20]. More recently two novel geometries with different materials (pentagon and cross-type section) have been also investigated [21].…”