Thin-walled metallic components have been widely used as energy absorbers. One key drawback is the high initial crippling load, which typically results in passenger injuries. It is the objective of this study to introduce taper angle to thin-walled prisms, and to examine the crushing response of thin-walled frusta. Nonlinear finite element models of thin-walled frusta of different cross-sectional geometries were developed. Experimental investigations were conducted to validate these models. The effects of key design parameters on the energy absorption characteristics of frusta were explored. Comparison between thin-walled prisms and frusta show that taper angle helps to reduce the initial crippling load and increase the resistance to global buckling. To take advantage of the interaction effects, a novel multi-frusta configuration was developed and it was shown that the energy absorption efficiency is significantly increased. The results of this work are valuable for enhancing the crashworthiness performance of thin-walled metallic energy absorber.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/42866 |
| Date | 27 November 2013 |
| Creators | Hou, Chun |
| Contributors | Meguid, Shaker A. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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