Citation

Mamalis AG, Manolakos DE, Ioannidis MB, Kostazos PK, Hassiotis G. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2001; 6(2): 155-164.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

In vehicle crashworthiness studies special effort has been spent on experimental research and in establishing safe theoretical design criteria on the mechanics of crumpling, providing, in this manner, to the engineers the ability to design safe vehicle structures, so that the maximum amount of the crash energy will dissipate while the material surrounding the passengers department is deformed. Generally, this energy absorbing capability depends upon the governing deformation phenomena of all or part of structural components of simple geometry, such as thin-walled tubes, cones, frames, sections etc. In particular, the crash analysis of plated structural components has been traditionally based on destructive prototype testing and requires analytical and/or numerical theoretical models to incorporate in detail the main crash phenomena, i.e. local buckling, post-buckling and maximum strength of each section and the various crumpling mechanisms expected. For this purpose, specialized finite element codes have been developed to establish efficient design of energy absorbing systems. The main objective of the present paper is to apply the explicit FE code LS-DYNA to the simulation of the crash behaviour of metallic thin-walled square frusta subjected to axial compression. The results taken from the simulation, in comparison to the actual experimental data on similar specimens, agree on many aspects and the concluding remarks pertaining to the design of the crushing process are drawn.

Language: en