The mechanical behavior of thin-walled tube filled with hollow metal spheres

The present work focuses on the quasi-static axial crush performance of the thin-walled tubes filled with hollow metal spheres (TWT-HMS) and their individual components (thin-walled tubes and hollow metal spheres) under axial compressive loads. All structures were compared in terms of the load-displacement and/or load-strain curves, energy absorption and energy absorbing efficiency curves. The results indicate that hollow metal spheres and thin-walled tubes are promising energy absorbing materials. The hollow metal spheres improve the axial bearing capability of thin-walled tube, and the biggest improvement scale can be 300%; due to the superimposed effect, TWT-HMS has more excellent properties than the hollow metal sphere and thin-walled tube. Thus, TWT-HMS is an energy absorbing structure with excellent properties and it has a promising application prospect.