Crashworthiness design for multi-cell circumferentially corrugated thin-walled tubes with sub-sections under multiple loading conditions

Abstract

Multi-cell, multi-corner and adding edge-junctions structures are widely used approaches to enhance the crash characteristic of the thin-walled structures. In this study, the crashworthiness of twenty-one structures combining these three structures is examined under axial and oblique loading angles. The finite element models under axial loading are validated by experimental data from the literature and theoretical approach. In the theoretical approach, removing the corner elements in the inner structure from the theoretical calculation in multi-cell tubes has increased the accuracy. With the validations performed in axial loadings, it is predicted that the finite element model will be accurate also in oblique loadings. On the other hand, rupture strain has not been used in finite element models, which may cause some errors. Crashworthiness performance has improved as the cell number increases under all loading conditions except the C2 tube under 20-degree oblique loading. Also, the sub-sections added to the inner wall corners of the tubes significantly increase the energy absorption capacity. The complex proportion assessment (COPRAS) method and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are utilized to get the tube with the best crashworthiness performance. The entropy method is used for weighting to avoid human intervention. The best tube varies depending on the weighting and selection method. Finally, the radial basis function (RBF) approximation approach and four multiobjective optimization methods are used to obtain optimum sizes of the C4O tube. The results of the optimizations show that the optimum structure does not differ depending on the optimization method, and the results are very close to each other.