A methodology to investigate and optimise the crashworthiness response of foam-filled twelve right angles thin-walled structures under axial impact

Rui Liang, Xi Liu, Yuanzhi Hu, Chengyue Jiang, Christophe Bastien

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
42 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Multi-cell and foam-filled structures have shown outstanding crashworthiness capacities. As a result, foam-filled twelve right angles thin-walled structures (FTRATS), an integrator of them, can be excellent energy absorber candidates in the vehicle body structure. This paper presents a new methodology to investigate the crashworthiness potential of a series of novel FTRATS with different topological distributions. The base computer FTRATS model was correlated using existing experiments based on a single core thin-walled square tube filled with foam, then followed by a dynamic response evaluation of 32 FTRATS configurations, with the purpose of finding the lowest peak crushing force (PCF), the highest specific energy absorption (SEA) and crash load efficiency (CLE). As the results were initially inconclusive, a complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method was used to extract the configuration with the highest potential, suggesting that the five-cell FTRATS filled with foam at its periphery showed superior crashworthiness properties. This selection was followed by an optimization using adaptive multi-population genetic algorithm methods based on response surfaces methodology, kriging model and Optimal Latin hypercube design. The solution obtained generated a stable collapse, increased the CLE (63.94 %), lowered PCF (38.83%) and increased SEA (38.86%). This new and innovative process has shown that coupling COPRAS and optimisation lead to an unbiased and efficient method to study and optimize FTRATS structures.
Original languageEnglish
Article number116736
Number of pages12
JournalComposite Structures
Volume310
Early online date28 Jan 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2023, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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This document is the author’s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Funder

The support of this work by the 2022 Guangxi University Young and Middle-aged Teachers' Basic Research Ability Improvement Project (Grant No. 2022KY0781) is greatly appreciated. The work was also supported by the Special project of Chongqing Banan District Science and Technology Bureau: “Structural lightweight design technology of car body front longitudinal beam”.

Keywords

  • Foam-filled
  • Twelve right angles thin-walled structure
  • FTRATS
  • Crashworthiness
  • Energy absorption
  • Topology

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