Deformation And Energy Absorption Properties Of Bending Bellows Under Lateral Loading

The bellows structure is widely applied in engineering pipes, automobile, petrochemical, and other areas of the industry. And, the bellows are usually subjected to such various loads as interior compression, the axial loading and the lateral loading in the process of applications. Under the loading,the bellows will produce large plastic deformation or fracture,which will lead to catastrophic accidents; Therefore, investigating the mechanical behavior of bellows has great important engineering application background and potential application value.In the paper, on the basis of domestic and foreign research, the deformation law and the energy absorption properties of the bellows with a certain curvature in lateral quasi static compression, lateral impact load and lateral explosive loading is studied by means of the numerical simulation method. The main work is summarized as follows:FE study about deformation and energy absorption of bending bellows subjected to the lateral compression load and lateral impact load was performed by using LS-DYNA. The parameters, such as the number of wave, wave height, the ratio of the diameter to thickness and the ratio of the curvature to radius, were concerned to probe their influence on structural mechanics behavior. It compares the deformation process between conventional tube and bending bellows, and the deformation history of conventional tube and bending bellows at different horizontal displacement are obtained respectively. The energy absorption properties of bending bellows under lateral compression load and impact load are analyzed by such evaluation index as total energy, specific energy absorption and crush force efficiency, and compared with the corresponding conventional tube.The numerical simulation on the dynamic response of bellows under the lateral explosion loading was presented by employing the contact coupling algorithm.The influence of diameter-thickness ratio,wave-height of the bellows, stand off and explosive geometrical size parameters on the variations of the displacement, acceleration and the distance of key point were investigated. The results revealed that the deformation process of the bellows under the lateral explosion loading can be divided into three stages-:local dent stage,coupling of local dent and whole bending stage,whole bending stage. Meanwhile, it is found that the displacement and acceleration of the bellows are less than that of the circular tube, indicating that the bellows have more advantages than the circular tube in terms of damage and deformation resistance. And the deformation law of bellows is studied under lateral explosion loading accordingly.