A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON CRASHWORTHINESS CHARACTERISTICS OF THIN-WALLED TUBES WITH FUNCTIONALLY GRADED THICKNESS AND VARIOUS CROSS-SECTIONAL GEOMETRIES

Abstract

The present paper aims at investigating the effect of cross-section geometry on the crashworthiness characteristics of thin-walled aluminum tubes with functionally graded thickness (FGT). To achieve this aim, different thickness-gradient patterns and cross-section geometries (i.e. circular, square and hexagonal) are considered in analysis. The same height and average section area are selected for all kinds of tubes. In addition, the energy absorption performance of the FGT tubes having different section geometries are compared with their uniform thickness (UT) counterparts at the same weights. In most cases, it is seen that the FGT tubes having circular and hexagonal cross sections have more efficient crashworthiness performance in comparison with square one. The analysis results also show that the crashworthiness performances of FGT tubes are generally better than their UT counterparts.