Numerical study on energy absorbing characteristics of thin-walled tube under axial and oblique impact

Energy absorbing characteristics (EAC) of thin wall tube during the impact are important in the automobile and aerospace industries. In this paper, energy absorbing characteristics such as mean force, peak force, energy absorption and crash force efficiency (CFE) of three different cross-sections (square, rectangular and circular) at three different thicknesses (2 mm, 2.5 mm and 4 mm) were analyzed. The analysis was accomplished using ABAQUS/EXPLICIT, and aluminum alloy (AA6063) was used as a shell material. The result of impact (or) crash-worthiness against axial load indicates that the circular cross section of 2.5 mm thickness is optimum. During the oblique (15°, 30°, 45°) impact, increasing the angle leads to less energy absorption. Also, Multilinear regression analysis was carried out to predict the energy absorption characteristics at 90°.