Numerical Crashworthiness Improvements of Thin Walled Structures

Abstract—The aim of the present paper is to achieve an improved understanding of the crushing behavior of thin-walled structures under axial impact. Maintaining the material, length and thickness of the specimens, the crushing behavior of innovative profiles namely Hexagon, Octagon and 12-sided profile, is investigated. In the study, the entire crushing process, including the initial stage of collapse, its localization and the subsequent progressive folding will be analyzed by using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The relation between the localized plastic deformation and the corresponding crushing force is done by comparing the cross sections of the specimens and their load-displacement curves, maximum crushing force, mean crushing force, crushing force efficiency, total energy absorption and most importantly, the specific energy absorption. These data would provide substantial insight of the collapse mechanism of thin-walled tube structures, in order to find the most suitable specimen for an energy absorber which is an essential parameter in the oil and gas application. The results showed that the 12-sided Cross profile performed most efficiently under dynamic impact absorbing more than 80% higher energy compared to the 6-sided Hexagonal tube and the 8-sided Octagonal tube.

Index Terms—Component, thin-walled structures, crashworthiness, energy absorption.

Sharifah Shazzana Bt Wan Taha was with the Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University Sarawak CDT 250, 98009, Miri, Malaysia.
Haidar Fadhil. Al-Qrimli is with Studies Planning and Follow up Department, Ministry of Oil, Baghdad, Iraq (e-mail: halqrimli@yahoo.com).
Omar Dhari Hussein is with Technical Directorate, Ministry of Oil, Baghdad, Iraq (e-mail: omardharry@gmail.com).

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Cite: Sharifah Shazzana Bt Wan Taha, Haidar F. Al-Qrimli, and Omar Dhari Hussein, "Numerical Crashworthiness Improvements of Thin Walled Structures," International Journal of Materials, Mechanics and Manufacturing vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 180-184, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).