Performance of hollow and aluminum foam-filled multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes (6063-T5) under axial impact

Abstract

This study investigates a new form of multi-cell thin-walled structures under axial impact. Eighteen multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes were tested under drop hammer impacts. Nine of the specimens were hollow tubes and the other nine specimens were aluminum foam-filled multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes. This paper presents the entire duration of the impact including the time history curves of forces and vertical displacement. The influence of impact velocity, wall thickness and aluminum foam on the impact resistance of multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes were discussed. Then, the energy dissipation performance of multi-cell thin-walled structures tested in this study and single-cell thin-walled structures tested in prior research is compared. The results show that the foam infill improves the energy dissipation capacity of the multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes, but the specific energy absorption (the energy absorbed per unit mass) decreases. Although the specific energy absorption is reduced, using foam infill is still an effective method to improve energy dissipation capacity without increasing the size of the member. Compared with the single-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes, the specific energy absorption of the multi-cell thin-walled aluminum alloy tubes is higher by 7.35%–55.51%, which means that multi-cell thin-walled columns are a better energy absorption component compared with single-cell columns.