Axial crushing of thin walled cylindrical shell with foam core

摘要

The structure of a thin walled tube filled with light weight foam has wide engineering applicationsnbecause of its excellent energy absorption capacity. When the structure is axially crushed, theninteractive effect between the tube and foam core becomes a critical design consideration.nPrevious theoretical studies so far have largely been concerned with fully in-filled tubes. Innaddition, the approach to quantitatively estimating the interactive effect is complex. To fill thesengaps, a theoretical framework is established in this paper to predict the crushing behaviour ofnsuch structures with partial infill. Using the modified superfolding element model for shell and thenvolume reduction model for foam core, the mean crushing force is predicted through the energynmethod. As this formula relates the mean crushing force to the half plastic wavelength H, theninteractive effect can be easily evaluated from the change of H.