Crashworthiness analysis of novel multi-cell tubes inspired by Chladni patterns

Multi-cell thin-walled structures are used as impact absorber structures in different sectors. Nature is the most important source of inspiration for researchers in the design of high-performance multi-cell thin-walled structures. In this study, new designs are created by inspiration from the resonance patterns obtained with the Chladni experiment and novel multi-cell thin-walled structures are presented. In these designs, elliptical and circular sub-structures are used together in different ways to generate novel structures. The crashworthiness performances of the inspired structures are carried out with finite element analyses verified by physical experiments in the literature. The ideal structure is determined with the complex proportion assessment (COPRAS) method among 17 designs obtained from the Chladni patterns by using peak crushing force (PCF), total energy absorption (EA), specific energy absorption (SEA) and crash force efficiency (CFE) crashworthiness indicators. An optimization model with four design variables implemented with gray wolf optimization (GWO) is established to obtain the optimum cross section of the ideal structure. The constraint and objective functions of the optimization model are obtained with the radial basis function (RBF) method. The experimental set required for the RBF model is created using the Latin hypercube (LHC) method.