Crushing behaviors of buckling-induced metallic meta-lattice structures

Thin-walled lattice materials can be applied as energy absorbers in protective structures of civil defense. In this paper, quasi-static in-plane crushing tests were carried out to investigate the crushing behavior and energy absorption of buckling induced meta-lattice structures (BIMSs) with different central angles made of plastic iron material DT3 and formed by wire cutting technique. Three crushing patterns were revealed and analyzed. The test results clearly show that the initial peak force (IPF), the crushing force efficiency (CFE), the specific energy absorption (SEA) and the mean crushing force (MCF) can be substantially improved by introducing buckling pattern into the straight-walled lattice structure. The MCF of the BIMS was consistently predicted based on the simplified super folding element (SSFE) and the flattening element.

Improved concept models for straight thin-walled columns with box cross section

This paper focuses on developing improved concept models for straight thin-walled box sectional columns which can better predict the peak crushing force that occurs during crashworthiness analyses. We develop a nonlinear translational spring based on previous research and apply such a spring element to build the enhanced concept models. The work presented in this article is developed on the basis of the publication of the author (Liu and Day, 2006b) and has been applied in a crashworthiness design issue, which is presented by the author in another paper (Liu, 2008).

A comparative crashworthiness analysis of multi-cell polygonal tubes under axial and oblique loads

In order to investigate the energy absorption characteristics of multi-cell polygonal tubes with different cross-sectional configurations,firstly,the theoretical formulae of the mean crushing force under axial load for four multi-cell polygonal tubes were derived by combining the Super Folding Element theory with Zhang’s research results.These formulae can be used to validate the numerical model and quickly evaluate the energy absorption ability of multi-cell polygonal tubes.Furthermore,a comparative study on the energy absorption performance of eight multi-cell polygonal tubes under axial and oblique loads was conducted.The results show that all tubes have a stable mixed deformation mode under axial load.The multi-cell decagon tube has better energy-absorption ability compared with other tubes.Whenθis less than 10°,all the tubes maintain a stable deformation mode,and the multi-cell decagon tube also has the biggest crushing force efficiency and specific energy absorption among these eight tubes;meanwhile compared with the results atθ=0°,the specific energy absorption of all tubes decreases by about 8%-21%,while the crushing force efficiency increases by 20%-56%.However,at large angles 20°and 30°,all of the tubes collapse in bending modes and lose their effectiveness at energy absorption.