Attempt to improve the material utilisation and crashworthiness of grooved tube subjected to axial crushing

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Attempt to improve the material utilisation and crashworthiness of grooved tube subjected to axial crushing

Yao, Ru-Yang / Zhao, Zhen-Yu / Yin, Guan-Sheng / Zhang, Bei

Grooved tube has proved to be an effective energy absorber due to its excellent controllability during axial crushing. In the present research, a novel energy absorber named two-stage grooved tube is proposed. Three approaches are put forward to improve the material utilisation of grooved tube by reducing the dimensions of thick-walled section. In addition, to enhance the stability and energy absorption performance, aluminium foam is filled in empty grooved tube. An analytical model for foam-filled grooved tube is established, and in which a semi-empirical constant to reflect the tube–foam interaction is determined by fitting test data. The experimental results show that the empty grooved tube with weak thick-walled section always generates non-axisymmetric mode, while the foam filling can significantly improve the structural stability by transiting the non-axisymmetric mode into axisymmetric mode. Foam filling can also obviously enhance the energy absorption performance of empty grooved tube with strong thick-walled section, and all foam-filled cases shows typical two-stage energy absorption characteristics. Moreover, reducing the thickness and length of thick-walled section both can improve the material utilisation of foam-filled grooved tube, while the latter can also significant enhance the energy absorption performance.