Experimental Studies on the Quasi-Static Axial Crushing Behavior of Foam-Filled Steel Extrusion Tubes

The concerns of automotive safety have been given special attention in order to reduce human fatalities or injuries. One of the techniques to reduce collision impact or compression energy is by filling polymeric foam into metallic tubes. In this work, polyurethane foam was introduced into the steel extrusion tubes and quasistatically compressed at constant cross-head displacement. Different tube thicknesses and foam densities were used and these variables were related to the crashworthiness aspect of the foam-filled structures. It is found that both tube thickness and foam density played an important role in increasing the crashworthiness behaviors of the structures but when the tube thickness reached a certain value, foam density reduced the energy absorption performance of the structures.