Energy absorption performance on multilayer expanded metal tubes under axial impact

The performance of expanded metal tubes was studied under axial impact loading. Despite their low weight, expanded metal sheets have high energy absorption capacity. In order to evaluate the crashworthiness of the tube and to achieve maximum energy absorption, the collapse mechanism of the tube was experimentally examined considering the direction of the cells. The effect of the cell size of the expanded metal sheet, the thickness of the tube and making the absorber a multilayer on the energy absorption and the behavior of the absorbers was numerically investigated. Results demonstrated that the tubes with zero degree angle cells had a symmetric collapse mechanism. Increase in the size of the cells decreased the peak crushing force and the energy absorption capacity. It was observed that increasing the thickness of the tube and making the absorber a multilayer, will have significant effect on the initial maximum crushing force and energy absorption capacity and making the absorber a multilayer improves the crushing efficiency.