Collapse behavior of thin-walled corrugated tapered tubes

Abstract

Thin-walled structures have been widely used in energy absorption and safety applications such as automotive, due to their lightweight and progressive folding modes. This work studies the collapse behavior and energy absorption of corrugated tapered tubes (CTT) under axial crushing numerically. The tested tubular structures were impacted axially with a striker’s mass that is restricted to translational motion along the structures’ axes. The effect of CTT’s geometric features on different performance indicators, namely the initial peak force (PF), mean crushing force (MF), energy absorption (EA) and specific energy absorption (SEA) was studied. The results showed that the amplitude of corrugation is the most influential factor on the force-displacement characteristics of CTTs. Moreover, three deformation modes were found for CTTs, and the development of a mode was mainly influenced by the corrugation’s amplitude and wavelength. In addition, for the tested range of geometric features, the initial peak force was found to be reduced when corrugation is adopted, especially for longer corrugation’s amplitudes and wavelengths. On the other hand, the energy absorption (EA) and specific energy absorption (SEA) were found to be reduced when corrugation is adopted. Finally, it was found that the two most influential geometric factors on the performance indicators of CTT were the corrugation’s amplitude and wall thickness.