Lateral crushing of single and multi-cell thin-walled circular tube under a quasi-static loading

Abstract

The thin-walled structure is widely used as an energy absorption system due to low cost, easy availability and lightweight. Furthermore, the energy absorption performance of a multi-cell thin-walled tube has been reported to perform better compared to a single thin-walled tube. This paper addresses the energy absorption capacities of single and multi-cell thin-walled circular tubes under quasi-static lateral loading. The quasi-static compressive lateral loading test was performed to identify the deformation behaviour and energy absorption of singular and multi-cell thin-walled circular tubes. Thin-walled circular tubes are made of mild steel with 3.85 mm thick, 60.3 mm diameter and height 20 mm were under quasi-static compression test. While other single circular tubes with the same thickness and height with different 128 mm diameter were under the same compression condition to compare the energy absorption with a multi-cell tube. The results show that the energy absorption performance of multi-cell thin-walled circular tubes is superior compared to that of a single thin-walled circular tube.