Crush Mechanics of Square Tubes

Thin-Walled tubes are the most widely used structures for the crash energy absorption of vehicles. A robustly designed tube has a high energy absorption capacity under axial loading. In this manuscript, the crushing behavior of square tubes is studied and all required steps are covered to provide a comprehensive guideline for their robust design. Different topics are discussed and explained including analytical calculations, experimental analysis, and numerical simulation of the tubes. The main content of the present study can be summarized as follows: analyzing the irreproducibility issue of the crushing of square tubes, and providing a guideline for their reproducible and reliable design; examining the crushing behavior of square tubes and extracting equations for calculating their fold length and effective width; studying the bucking of square tubes and introducing an approach for calculating their plastic buckling and collapse forces; analyzing the effect of assembling and axial stacking of tubes on their crushing behavior and providing the required design guidelines. The research of this manuscript started based on open questions raised by the industry, thus besides the scientific view of the manuscript, simplified approaches are provided as well for industrial applications. Therefore, this manuscript is suitable for both researchers in the field and structural engineers who design energy absorbers for industrial applications.