Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of ISME

Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of ISME

Crushing response study of mechanical bitubal parallel energy absorbers

Authors
Saeed Sharifi
Mahmood Shakeri
Hadi Ebrahimi Fakhari
Reza Masoomi Asiabi
Abstract
Nowadays, increased interest in vehicle safety and crashworthiness has led to comprehensive research on the crush response of energy absorbers from analytical, numerical and experimental points of view. Numerous established works have been published in studying the crushing response of tubes. In this way, this paper deals with numerical and experimental study on a new kind of energy absorber, named “bitubal parallel energy absorber”. In this absorber two tubes with different diameters are subjected to quasi-static axial loading. In addition to energy needed to crushing the inner tube and the outer tube, the interaction between two tubes is an affecting factor in energy absorbing. First, FE simulations were performed using ABAQUS/Explicit to explore an appropriate dimension for tubes, then effect of tube diameters and interaction effect in energy absorption capacity and collapse mode of parallel tubes studied. At the end bitubal energy absorber and equivalent monotubal were compared and it was observed that maximum crushing load and fluctuations in load-displacement curve are lower in bitubal specimen. FE simulation techniques validated by experimental testing on circular AL-6063-O extrusions and showed that ABAQUS can predict crushing response of parallel tubes high accuracy.
Keywords
Energy absorber
Parallel Shock absorber
Axial collapse
finite element method
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Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of ISME
Volume 15, Issue 3 - Serial Number 32
System Dyanamics and Solid Mechanics
Autumn 2013
Pages 37-51

  • Receive Date 22 November 2013