The local indentation of thin-walled beams is a key mechanism for the collapse of beams under lateral loads. The indentation behavior of multi-cell tubes is investigated in this work. Quasi-static experimental tests are conducted first for multi-cell tubes with three different sections. The deformed shapes and force responses are obtained by indenting the tubes resting on a rigid surface. Numerical simulations are then performed to analyze the static and dynamic responses of the tubes, and the accuracy of the numerical model is validated by the experimental results. The crushing force responses and deformation characteristics of the multi-cell sections are analyzed in detail and the energy absorption performances of them are evaluated. Results reveal that the cross-sectional shapes of the tubes have great influence on their deformation process and crushing force responses. Moreover, to further increase the energy absorption efficiency, sequential response surface method (SRSM) is employed to achieve the optimal designs of the multi-cell sections. Results show that the energy absorption performances of the sections are greatly improved by the SRSM optimization.
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