Dynamic progressive buckling of thin-wall grooved conical tubes under impact loading

Abstract

In the present study, a new analytical model is employed to investigate thin-wall grooved conical tubes under impact loading. In fact, by considering the groove that made on the wall structure, the effects of groove on the process of crushing and absorption ability have been investigated. Crushing of non-grooved cone has been compared with one grooved and then by considering different numbers of grooves and thickness, and variable gradient for cone’s wall is investigated under the axial impact loading. The number of grooves, thickness and cone’s wall gradient are the main variables in this paper. The results of current new model are compared with the finite element simulation results obtained by the ABAQUS code. A good agreement is observed between the analytical and numerical model results. Finally, absorption ability and more control of the process of crushing in conical energy absorbers are optimised by executing grooves on the cone’s wall. The initial peak load and mean axial crushing load are the main factors of the study, which showed that by increasing tension concentration at grooves, the initial peak load and the amount of absorbed energy will decrease, but the decrease in absorbed energy compared to reduction in initial peak load and control and more uniformity of absorber’s crushing can be ignored.