Optimum honeycomb filled crash absorber design

Axial and oblique impact crash tests on empty and honeycomb filled aluminum square tubes have been performed. Furthermore, in order to find more detail about crash process, finite element simulation of the experiments has been performed. In terms of finding more efficient and lighter crash absorber in this research, two steps have been done: First, multidesign optimization (MDO) technique has been applied to maximize the energy absorption and specific energy absorption of square, rectangular and circular tubes. Results of MDO have shown that the circular tubes have the best response. Results of previous works have indicated that filling of tubes with light filler often improve the crashworthiness behavior, and when the density of filler is higher than critical filler density the structure will lose its weight efficiency. Therefore, selection of an appropriate honeycomb density and tube thickness is unavoidable. In the second step, the NIDO technique has been used to optimize honeycomb filled aluminum. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.