Mechanical performance of bio-inspired corrugated tubes with varying vertex configurations

Abstract

Thin-walled metal tubes are the most widely used energy-absorption structures in various industries. Bionics can help engineers to design novel tubular structures to achieve outstanding crashworthiness performance. Inspired by the unique microstructure of a horse-hoof-wall and the concept of vertex-based hierarchy, a novel bio-inspired corrugated tube and its derivative structures with varying vertex configurations were proposed in this paper. Quasi-static compression test and finite element simulation were employed to investigate the mechanical behaviors of these bio-inspired tubes. The results showed that these bio-inspired tubes exhibit good crashworthiness performance, especially in terms of their weight force efficiencies. Moreover, by applying a complex proportional assessment method, the tube with regular octagon vertex configuration was selected as the optimum one among these bio-inspired tubes. A theoretical model was developed to predict the mean crushing force of the proposed tubes. In conclusion, the horse-hoof-wall inspired tubes exhibit a novel perspective on providing superior mechanical properties and pave a way of applications of bio-inspired engineering structures.