Axial crushing of flattened expanded metal tubes

•Axial crushing of flattened expanded metal tubes is investigated herein.•The investigation is performed using both experimental and numerical approaches.•Flattened and standard expanded metal tubes exhibit similar structural responses.•The energy absorption capacity improves for tubes with flattened meshes.•Enhancements in energy absorption capacity are due to material strain hardening.

This paper presents an investigation on the structural behavior of flattened expanded metal tubes subjected to axial crushing. At first, the study is carried out experimentally to investigate the effect of the angle formed between the expanded metal cell and the applied load. Secondly, the results are compared with experimental results for standard expanded metal sheets. Thereafter, numerical analyses are conducted by means of nonlinear finite element models, to investigate the enhancement in the energy absorption characteristics due to flattening of the expanded metal. Both results, experimental and numerical show a significant increase in energy absorbing capacity and mean force for the flattened tubes.