The numerical evaluation of crash performance of the pressurized thin-walled tubes

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the energy absorption characteristics of the pressurized thin-walled tubes under axial impact by numerical simulations. The Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) model with the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) approach was used, for the numerical simulations, which can simulate the interaction effects between tube wall and compressed air. In this manner, the effects of the parameters such as initial internal pressure, impact velocity, regulator discharge capacity, and regulator discharge set pressure on the energy absorption behavior of pressurized tubes were examined. The results showed that the pressurized thin-walled tubes absorbed higher impact energy than non-pressurized ones, and the amount of absorbed total energy increased with an increase in the initial internal pressure. Also, the total deformation displacement of thin-walled tubes can be reduced by different values of the initial internal pressure in cases of the same impact velocities. With increasing the impact velocity, the absorbed energy by the tube wall increases depending on micro-inertia effects. As a result of this increment, both the absorbed total energy and the efficiency of pressurized air on the energy absorption capacity of pressurized thin-walled tubes improved. Also, the results show that the pressurized tubes can be used as adaptive energy absorbers with controlling the initial internal pressure and regulator set pressure for quasi-static and low-velocity impact loading conditions in cases of quite thin tube-wall thickness.