LAUSR

Abstract In this article, the energy absorption capability and crushing behavior of composite corrugated tubes have been studied experimentally and numerically under quasi-static axial slipping crushing loading. Five corrugations with angles ranging between 35° and 55° with 5° increment have been studied. Two different unidirectional fibers have been used; CFRP and KFRP and the corrugated tubes were fabricated by the wet filament winding process. Firstly, the corrugated tubes were experimentally tested. The slipping-force-stroke curves were obtained and failure modes have been analyzed. Based on the obtained curves, the calculated crashworthiness parameters were evaluated and presented. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images were taken to gain further insight into the experimental results. Secondly, LS-DYNA finite element code was used to numerically analyze the crushing response of the composite corrugated tubes. Mesh optimization and parametric study for the failure modeling parameters of the material model MAT 054 were carried out. The simulation results showed very good agreement with the experimental observations.