Investigation on multi-corners crash-box structure subjected to axial crushing

Abstract This paper investigated the crushing behavior of multi-corner crash-box subjected to quasi-static axial impact loading via FEM numerical simulation and experiments. The effects of the number of welded lines on the welded area and the heat-affected zone, which influence the crushing force, folding process, and energy absorption capacities of multi-corners, are studied. The numerical simulations reveal that adjusting these parameters can significantly influence the crushing behavior and energy absorption characteristics of the multi-corner crash-box. The FEM results also show that using a higher strain-rate material model increases peak and mean force when compared to a low strain-rate material model. In this work, three experiments were conducted to verify FEM model. The experimental results showed great agreement with numerical results in all models of folding collapse in symmetric modes, the crushing force, folding displacement, total energy absorption - EA , specific energy absorption - SEA and the crushing force efficiency - CFE . In conclusion, using the multi-corner crash-box can improve the crashworthiness parameters under axial crushing.