The Energy Absorption Properties And Numerical Simulations Of Composite Thin-walled Tubes

Thin-walled tube structures are the main components of collision structures for automobile, ship and spacecraft. Currently, most of the collision structures are made of aluminum alloy, but more and more researchers have introduced glass-fiber reinforced composites and aluminum foam into the thin-walled tubes to improve the energy absorption capability of collision structures. Based on previous studies, the analytical models and FE simulations are applied to study the energy absorption properties of(foam-filled) fiber reinforced thin-walled conical/square tubes in this paper.Firstly, we established the analytical models of(foam-filled) fiber reinforced thin-walled conical/square tubes, and the accuracy of analytical models was verified by test data. The previous studies revealed that the analytical models played an important role in studying the energy absorption properties of thin-walled tubes structures. Researchers were able to qualitatively obain the energy absorption properties of thin-walled tubes with the help of analytical models, while experiments would take huge cost and a lot of time.Secondly, the finite element models of(foam-filled) fiber reinforced thin-walled conical/square tubes were set up in this paper, and FE simulations were compared with the test results to ensure accuracy of FE models. It still lacks test data of composite thin-walled tubes, and FE simulations can make up the deficiency. The most importance is that FE simulations allow us to further study the energy absorption properties of composite thin-walled tubes, for example, we were able to survey how strain rate affects energy absorption capability under impact load.Finally, this paper figured out the energy absorption properties of composite tubes in detail based on analytical models and FE simulation. The roles of fiber layer thickness, fiber wrapped orientation, foam density, impact speed, base angles of conical tubes and so on were all investigated. Some optimization proposals that improve the energy absorption capability were made in this paper based on energy absorption properties.