Solidity effect on crashworthiness characteristics of thin-walled tubes having various cross-sectional shapes

In this paper, effects of solidity and cross-sectional shape on crashworthiness characteristics of thin-walled tubes under dynamic axial impact load are examined. For this purpose, explicit finite element analyses are conducted for tubes having triangular, square, circular, hexagonal, octagonal and multi-cell cross-sectional shapes. The FE model is validated with analytical and experimental results that were reported in literature. It is found that FE solutions agree well with analytical and experimental results presented in the literature. To compare the tubes having different geometric dimensions and shapes on the same ground, the tubes are selected such that they have the same mass and length, and the striker mass and velocity are identical for all tubes as well. By changing solidity of tubes between 0.05 and 0.25, the cross-sectional dimensions of tubes are specified. The crushing force efficiency, crushing strain, total efficiency, structural efficiency and dynamic energy absorbing effectiveness parameters are calculated for various tubes as a function of the solidity parameter. It is concluded that crashworthiness performance of thin-walled tubes is significantly influenced by the solidity and cross-sectional shape. Results about the most effective solidity values and cross-sectional shapes are presented.