On the crashworthiness of composite rectangular thin-walled tubes internally reinforced with aluminium or polymeric foams: Experimental and numerical simulation

The crashworthy behaviour of square composite material tubes subjected to static axial compression under various conditions is reported in this article. The behaviour and the contribution of aluminium and polymeric foams to the tubes crashworthiness were also investigated, in order to determine the functional and financial efficiency of all specimens. The collapse modes at macroscopic scale during the failure process were observed and analysed. Furthermore, an arithmetic simulation with the LS-DYNA simulation software was executed in order to compare the results to the experimentally observed collapse mechanisms of the components, and the calculated energy absorbed during the processes. Finally, the simulating results were well justified in comparison to the experimental ones, indicating the efficiency of the analytical model in predicting the energy absorbing capacity of the collapsed shell.