Crashworthiness of multicellular tubes with tree-like fractal hierarchical structure under axial impact

Abstract

A new type of tree-like fractal hierarchical multicellular tubes (TFHMTs) is proposed, and the crashworthiness of the structure under axial impact is studied by using a verified Abaqus/Explicit finite element model. The research results show that the TFHMTs have better energy absorption capacity than single-cell tubes of the same thickness and mass under the same conditions. The wrinkle wavelength of the third-order TFHMTs is significantly shorter than that of the single-cell tubes, resulting in more folds. For the same mass, the proposed third-order TFHMTs has a lower peak crush force than a single-cell tube. Moreover, the specific energy absorption is up to 49.40% greater than that of the single-cell tube, and the crush force efficiency is up to 66.18%. Subsequent parameterization research on the layer ratio coefficient and wall thickness on TFHMTs was systematically conducted. Finally, a comparative analysis with typical hierarchical multicellular tubes was performed.

Keywords:

• Tree-like fractal
• crashworthiness
• hierarchical structure
• energy absorption

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52365036 and No.52065059), the Basic Ability Enhancement Program for Young and Middle-aged Teachers of Guangxi (No. 2023KY0703) and Wuzhou Science and technology plan project (No. 202202042).