Axial crushing of perforated metal and composite-metal tubes

This article presents experimental and numerical study of intact and perforated metal and composite-metal tubes under axial compression loading. The metal specimens were prepared by cutting commercial circular tubes into desired lengths. To build the composite-metal specimens, the aluminum tubes were wrapped with fiber-reinforced composite (woven E-glass fiber and vinyl ester resin) using hand layup technique. Some circular cutouts with different diameters were drilled in the mid-height of perforated specimens. The samples were axially compressed between two rigid platens under quasi-static condition using Zwick universal testing machine. The effects of number and diameter of holes on some key parameters of energy absorbers such as peak load, specific absorbed energy and crush force efficiency are investigated. Comparing results of perforated tubes with intact specimens shows that number and diameter of holes have great effects on mentioned parameters. Numerical simulation of perforated metal tubes is performed by finite element method using Abaqus/Explicit software package, and the results show good correlation between experimental and numerical methods in the most investigated cases.