Experimental and Numerical Crashworthiness Investigation of Empty and Foam-Filled Thin-Walled Tubes with Shallow Spherical Caps

Abstract

Thin-walled structures have been extensively used as energy absorbers in crashworthiness applications such as automobile and aeronautical industries to protect passengers from severe injury. This paper investigates the energy absorption responses of empty and foam-filled cylindrical and conical tubes with shallow spherical caps under quasi-static axial loading. Nonlinear dynamic finite element analyses are carried out to investigate the details concerning crushing process. Satisfactory agreements are achieved between the finite element and the experimental results. The numerical and experimental results highlight several effects of foam filling on the crushing behavior of the thin-walled tubes. Finally, the effect of semi-apical angle on the crushing behavior of the empty and foam-filled tubes with shallow spherical caps is investigated. This study provides practical information about using thin-walled tubes with shallow spherical caps as energy absorbers in aerospace applications in order to design reentry sounding rocket based on foam-filled tube with shallow spherical caps.