Impact resistance and energy absorption ability of bio-mimetic thin-walled structures with hollow columns under impact loading

Abstract

With the increasing damage of lives and properties caused by impact accidents, thin-walled tubes have been widely employed to make energy-absorbing structures in the field of automotive engineering due to their lightweight and energy absorption ability. In this work, we proposed three kinds of thin-walled bio-mimetic tubes inspired by horsetail plants and investigated the energy absorption abilities of the above structures with hollow columns under impact loading by means of the finite-element method. The effect of three factors, including column diameter, wall thickness, and impact angle, on the energy absorption characteristics of the bio-mimetic structure, is discussed. The primary outcome of this research is a design method for the use of thin-walled multi-cell tubes for an energy absorption device where impact loading is expected. It was also found that the energy absorption performances of the hexagonal structures are better than that of the triangular and quadrilateral ones. Moreover, the results revealed that the absorbed energy by thin-walled bio-mimetic structures shows more dependence on the impact angle than on the wall thickness of the tube.

Influence of curvy stiffeners on the axial crushing response of 3D-printed polymer composite cylindrical tubular structures

“…11 To attain such a deformation response with enhanced crashworthiness performance indicators, researchers adopted different techniques to the tubes such as adding foam fillers, grooves, holes, axial stacking of tubes, and multi-cell schemes. [12][13][14][15][16] Among these, multi-cell tubes have received great attention in recent years because of their superior energy absorption characteristics owing to the increasing number of cells and have wide application scope in automotive structures. Recently, the modification of geometric features like the arrangement of the internal stiffeners and their connectivity with the external tube walls has been extensively investigated.…”

Investigating hole effects on bending performance of aluminum beams with square cross-sections under three-point bending load and their implementation in light vehicles

“…3 During an accident, the beams used in the body of the car reduce the intensity of the impact caused by the collision by absorbing part of the kinetic energy of the accident, and in this way, a gentler impact is inflicted on the passengers. In addition to beams that are subjected to bending, energy absorbers 4,5 and sandwich panels 6 are also widely used in the automotive industry. These structures were mainly made by metal thin-walled profiles like aluminum, [7][8][9] copper, 10 and steel.…”