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Finite Element Modeling for the Simulation of the Quasi-Static Compression of Corrugated Tapered Tubes
Published on: January 6, 2023
Investigation on crashworthiness and mechanism of a bionic antler-like gradient thin-walled structure
Zhiquan Wei1, Xu Zhang1, Yang Zheng1
1School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Inspired by an impact-resistant antler, a novel size-gradient thin-walled structure is designed as an energy absorber. Its crashworthiness and mechanism are investigated by finite element simulation. The results show that the bionic-antler gradient structure has excellent crashworthiness performance with the specific energy absorption (SEA) of 2.17 and 1.29 times that of cylinder and fractal spider web, respectively, and the crushing force efficiency as high as 91.54%. Furthermore, when its SEA is the same as that of the fractal spider web, the peak crushing force can be reduced by 35%. The bionic-antler gradient structure produces many folds due to small folding wavelength, which expands the scope of energy storage area and improves the value of energy storage. Increasing properly the cell size-gradient or decreasing the average cell size can further enhance the crashworthiness performance of the bionic-antler gradient structure.
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