Investigation of lateral crushing of sandwich tubes

Systematic investigations into thin-walled circular tubes with Aluminium foam sandwiched under quasi-static lateral crushing were conducted in this paper. A total of 30 sandwich tubes of different diameter to thickness ratios were crushed under MTS machine. Two bonding cases between tubes and foam core, i.e., fully glued and packed cases, were considered. The progressive collapse history and load-displacement curves were captured. Three different crushing patterns were observed and classified with respect to the geometric features. Numerical simulations of the related experiments were also performed using ABAQUS/Explicit to explore the crush behavior and energy absorption characteristics. The progressive collapse events were successfully simulated and the corresponding numerical results were then compared with the actual experimental data. The numerical results were found to show agreements with those of experiments. Furthermore, both results demonstrated that sandwich tube enhanced both crush strength and energy absorption capability compared with the sum of each component, which was more weight-effective than empty tube. It showed that bonding between tubes and foam core for sandwich tubes played a different role for different crushing patterns as well.