International Journal of Crashworthiness

ISSN: 1358-8265 (Print) 1754-2111 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcrs20

Crashworthiness study for multi-cell composite

filling structures

Yong Zhang, Pingzheng Ge, Minghao Lu & Xiongming Lai

To cite this article: Yong Zhang, Pingzheng Ge, Minghao Lu & Xiongming Lai (2017):
Crashworthiness study for multi-cell composite filling structures, International Journal of
Crashworthiness, DOI: 10.1080/13588265.2017.1304169

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13588265.2017.1304169

Published online: 31 Mar 2017.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/13588265.2017.1304169

Crashworthiness study for multi-cell composite filling structures

Yong Zhang, Pingzheng Ge, Minghao Lu and Xiongming Lai
College of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Huaqiao University, Xiamen, China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Lightweight cellular materials such as honeycombs and foams can absorb energy efficiently, and Received 23 November 2016
are therefore used as filler materials in thin-walled structures. This paper aims to explore the merits Accepted 6 March 2017
of various filling fashions on the crashworthiness of multi-cell square structures, namely KEYWORDS
honeycomb filling, foam filling and compound filling of honeycomb and foam. First, finite element Cellular materials;
models of different filling structures are validated by the theoretical model. Then, the numerical crashworthiness; compound
analysis is carried out using nonlinear finite element code LS-DYNA. The results reveal that partially filling; optimisation
filling the corner cells of the multi-cell square tube using honeycombs (H40) yields best
crashworthiness performance. While for foam filling, filling two diagonally opposed corner cells
(F20) produces the best results. Finally, the compound filling schemes were implemented, and
found that filling the corner cells with honeycombs, and the central cell with foams (H40F01)
generates promising crashworthiness performance. Finally, multi-objective particle swarm
optimisation algorithm is adopted to maximise the specific energy absorption and minimise peak
crushing force of the three novel structures. The results show that partially filling the four corner
cells with honeycombs (H40) yields the most desirable crashworthiness performance.

1. Introduction are lightweight, and can absorb energy as the material

densifies under compression. Santosa [22] and Zarei
Thin-walled tubes have been widely deployed in auto-
[34] conducted axial crushing of aluminium honey-
motive, military and other industrial applications as
comb-filled square tubes. They found that the mean
energy absorbers since they are relatively cheap and
crushing strength of the composite tubes is improved
weight efficient. In the past decades, crushing character-
comparing with their empty counterparts. Cakiroglu [8]
istics of thin-walled tubes have been investigated via the-
investigated the quasi-static crushing of honeycomb-
oretical and experimental approaches [1,2,5,29]. Though
filled thin-walled circular tubes, and concluded that the
empty thin-walled tubes can absorb energy efficiently
interaction effect between the tube wall and the filler
via progressive folding, they are vulnerable to external
material also contributed to the enhanced crashworthi-
load disturbances and their overall crashworthiness per-
ness. The crashworthiness performance of honeycomb-
formance is not satisfying. With better understanding of
filled thin-walled tubes can be optimised by seeking the
cross-section shapes of thin-walled tubes, researchers
optimal parameters. Yin and Sun [27,33] adopted multi-
proposed multi-cell configurations to replace hollow
objective optimisation schemes, and improved the
cross-sections. Chen and Wierzbicki [9] studied the
design of honeycomb-filled tubes with maximum spe-
crushing behaviours of double-cell and triple-cell struc-
cific energy absorption (SEA) and minimum peak crush-
tures under axial loading and proposed a theoretical
ing force (PCF). Li et al. [17] further optimised the EA
model to predict the mean crushing force (MCF). Zhang
properties of metal square honeycomb-filled structures.
et al. [38] analysed the energy absorption (EA) of square
As another class of lightweight material, foams-filled
multi-cell columns and modified Chen’s theoretical for-
tubes have also been examined by researchers over the
mula for the MCF. In addition, Tang et al. [28] carried
years [6,11,13,14,23-26,35,36,39,40]. Seitzberger et al.
out numerical simulations of cylindrical multi-cell struc-
[11,13,24,25] conducted experimental tests of aluminium
tures and validated the merits of multi-cell cross-sec-
foam-filled square and circular columns subjected to
tional configurations.
static and dynamic loads, and found foam filling
To further improve EA performance, cellular materi-
improves the crush resistance of the tube. Santosa et al.
als have been attempted as filler materials in thin-walled
[23] and Zhang et al. [39] simulated the axial collapse of
tubes. Cellular materials such as honeycombs and foams

CONTACT Yong Zhang flashzy1980@163.com

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 Y. ZHANG ET AL.
foam-filled square and circular tubes. They found foam
filling is preferable to thickening the column wall in max-
imising SEA. A simple closed-form solution was then
developed to calculate the MCF of foam-filled square
tubes. Similar to honeycomb-filled structures, foam-filled
thin-walled tubes also offer a greater degree of design
freedom. Bi et al. [6] optimised single and triple-cell hex-
agonal columns filled with aluminium foams. Section
geometry, tube thickness and foam density were regarded
as design parameters. Results show that a moderate foam
density is preferable in achieving maximum SEA. In addi-
tion to square tubes [14,35,36], optimisation schemes
have been successfully applied to functionally graded
foam-filled tubes [26] and bitubal square tubes [40].
Those schemes delivered promising results when foam
density is well matched with the strength of the tube wall.
However, the aforementioned studies mainly focus on
full filling of thin-walled tubes with cellular material, par-
tial filling has rarely been explored. Furthermore, existing
literature only investigated the benefits of filling thin-
walled tubes with single filler material, the potential of
compound filling, by using both honeycombs and foams
has not been discovered. Especially, most honeycombs
investigated in literature are hexagonal honeycombs
[4,8,17,22,27,30,32-34]. However, references [7,18]
pointed out that square honeycombs are credited with
higher nodal connectivity, which is preferable in with-
standing load as a cellular network. Therefore, to bridge
the knowledge gap, this paper proposes a series of double
walled square honeycomb and foam compound filling
multi-cell square tubes as energy absorbers. Different fill-
ing fashions, including partial and full filling of single or
both cellular materials, are compared and optimised.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 described
numerical models and material parameters of all composite
structures. Section 3 introduced the crashworthiness indi-
cators and validated the finite element models. Section 4
Figure 1. Geometrical configuration of square structures.
discussed the numerical results of honeycomb or foam
filled, full, partial or compound filled structures. Section 5
described and solved the multiobjective optimisation prob-
lem. Finally, the concluding remarks are given in Section 6.
2 Numerical modelling
2.1. Double walled multi-cell compound filled tubes
The impact model of the thin-walled tube is illustrated in
Figure 1. The bottom of the tube is clamped on a rigid
wall. An impact block carrying a mass of 600 kg at an
initial velocity of V = 20 m/s moves downwards to crush
the tube. The tube wall is a double walled multi-cell
square tube [15], in which square honeycombs and
foams are used as filler materials in different fashions, as
shown in Figure 2. Figure 2(a) presents the sectional
views of partial and full filling of honeycombs or foams
into the tube. In Figure 2(b), a set of honeycomb and
foam compound fillings are laid out, including a non-
filled tube. To denote these structures, the following
abbreviations are used: H and F represent the use of
honeycomb or foam in the double-walled multi-cell
tube. The first digit (0, 2 or 4) gives the number of corner
cells that are filled with honeycombs or foams. The fol-
lowing digit (0 or 1) specifies the filling of the central
cell, in which 1 indicates a filled status, and 0 indicates
otherwise. The non-filling tube is abbreviated as S00.
The compound filling tubes are abbreviated similarly by
placing the honeycomb denotation before the foam
denotation. For example, H01F40 represents a tube with
its central cell filled by honeycomb, and four corner cells
filled by foams. In these structures, the thickness and cell
size of square honeycomb are 0.05 mm and 3 mm,
respectively. The density of the foam is 0.27g/cm3. The
length of the tubes L is 200 mm. The dimension of the
outer tube wall D and inner cell d are 60 mm and
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 3

H01(F01) H20(F20) H21(F21) H40(F40) H41(F41)

(a) Honeycomb or foam filled structures

H01F20 H01F40 H20F01 H20F20 H20F21

H21F20 H40F01 S00

(b) Honeycomb and foam interactive filled structures
Figure 2. Multicell structures with different filling fashions.

30 mm, respectively. The distance b between the inner dynamic and static frictional coefficients are 0.3 and
cell wall and outer cell wall is 15 mm. The thickness of 0.2, respectively [31].
the tubes T = 1 mm.
2.3. Material properties

2.2. FE models
The FE models are developed accordingly and shown in
Figure 3. Nonlinear finite element code LS-DYNA 971
is adopted to simulate the crushing behaviour of thin-
walled tubes. The buckling of tube walls and honey-
comb shells is modelled using Belytschko-Tsay four-
node shell elements with five integration points
through the thickness and one integration point in the
element plane [4]. The foam filler is modelled with
eight-node solid elements with one reduced integration
point to avoid volumetric locking [9]. The convergence
analysis indicates an element size 1.5 mm £ 1.5 mm for
shell elements and 1.5 mm £ 1.5 mm £ 1.5 mm for
solid elements are sufficient to generate reliable results
while balancing the computational cost. The tube walls
and honeycomb shells are modelled using an elastic lin-
ear strain-hardening model MATç24 in LS-DYNA.
The foam is modelled with MATç154 and impactor is
modelled with a rigid material MATç20. An auto-
matic surface-to-surface contact is chosen to simulate
the contact between the structure and rigid wall, as well
as the contact between honeycomb/foam and tube wall.
An automatic single-surface contact is adopted for the
tube wall and honeycomb shells. In these contacts, the
The material for these tubes and honeycomb shells is
alloy AA6060-T6 [20], with the following mechanical
properties: density r = 2.7£103 kg/m3, Young's modulus
E = 70 GPa, initial yield stress sy = 160 MPa, ultimate
stress su = 206 MPa, Tangent modulus Et = 0.23 GPa
and Poisson's ratio m = 0.3. The effect of strain rate is
neglected due to the very weak strain rate sensitivity of
aluminium alloys [37].
The foam material employed in reference [12,21] is
modelled using a constitutive model developed by Desh-
pande [10], which is based on self-similar yield surfaces
and the hardening effects from hydrostatic stress of yield
surface. The models were updated over the years and
implemented in LS-DYNA, in which the yield function
’ is defined as follows:
’ ¼ s e  Y0 (1)
where Y is the yield strength and the equivalent stress se
is given as:
1
s 2e ¼ ðs 2vm þ a2 s 2m Þ (2)
1 þ ða 6 3Þ2
here svm and sm represent the von Mises effective
stress and the mean stress, respectively. a is a
4 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Figure 3. Finite element models of different filling fashion square structures.

parameter that determines the shape of the yield sur- where ee is the equivalent strain, sp, a2, g, b and eD are
face, written as material parameters, which can be expressed as an
9ð12vp Þ exponential function of the ratio of foam density to
a2 ¼ (3) base material density, as
2ð1 þ vp Þ
  !q
where np is the plastic Poisson's ratio. For the alumin- 1 rf
ium foam,np = 0 in most cases, and a2 = 9/2. The strain s p ; a2 ; g; ¼ C0 þ C1 (5)
b rf 0
hardening rule Y is: !
" # 9 þ a2 rf
ee 1 eD ¼  ln (6)
Y ¼ s p þ g þ a2 ln (4) 3a2 rf 0
ep 1  ðee 6 eD Þb
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 5

Table 1. Material parameters for aluminium foam. by Hanssen et al. [13]. The MCF of a foam-filled multi-

s p (MPa) a2 (MPa) 1
b g(MPa) cell structure under dynamic loading can be expressed as:
C0(MPa) 0 0 0.22 0
C1(MPa) 590 140 320 40 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
q 2.21 0.45 4.66 1.42 MCF ¼ λPm þ s p b2 þ c s p s 0 bt: (11)

where rf and rf0 denote the foam density and the base where Pm is the MCF of empty column, and can be written
material density, respectively. C0, C1 and q are the as
material constants, which are summarised in Table 1.
Pm ¼ 13:06s 0 b1 6 3 t 3 6 5
(12)

3. Crashworthiness indicators and numerical where λ and c are constants set to 1 and 2.8, respectively.
validation s0 and sp are the characteristic stress of tube material and
the foam plateau stress. b and t are width and thickness of
3.1. Crashworthiness indicators
the column with foam filled part. Finite element models of
To evaluate the crashworthiness of different multi-cell F01, F20 and F40 are selected for validation.
filling structures, the relevant crashworthiness indicators In addition, the theoretical model for honeycomb-
are defined first, such as total EA, SEA, MCF, PCF and filled structures was also developed in reference [37,38].
crush load efficiency (CLE). And the expression of MCF under axial dynamic loading
The EA is the total strain energy absorbed during can be written as:
plastic deformation, given as pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z MCF ¼ ks 0 t ðNc þ 4N0 þ 2NT ÞpLc t (13)
x
EA ¼ FðxÞdx (7)
0 Where coefficient k varies between 1.3 and 1.6, and
set to 1.3 here. s0 is the characteristic stress of tube
where F(x) is the instantaneous crushing load and x is material, calculated as [23]:
the effective stroke length. In current study, the x is kept
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
at 140 mm. sy su
SEA is defined as the ratio of the EA to the mass of s0 ¼ (14)
1þn
the structure, defined as follows:
where the power law exponent n is 0.23. Hence, s0 of
SEA ¼ EA 6 m (8) AA6060 is 163 MPa. Nc, N0, and NT denote the numbers
of corner, crisscross and T-shape for square honeycomb,
where m is total mass of the structure. Higher SEA is respectively. LC is the perimeter of the cross-section and
preferable for structural crashworthiness. t is the thickness of the multi-cell thin-walled tube. Finite
The MCF for a given deformed length is expressed as element models of four typical structures (H01, H20,
Z x H40 and S00) were selected for validation.
1
MCF ¼ FðxÞdx (9) According to Equations (11) and (13), MCF of FEA
x 0 and theoretical results for foam and honeycomb filled
structures are shown in the Figure 4. It can be found
In addition, PCF is maximum value of F(x), which
that FEA results of foam and honeycomb filled struc-
corresponds to peak deceleration, as high PCF is detri-
tures are in good agreement with theoretical predictions.
mental to passenger safety. Thus, PCF should be con-
In addition, MCF of FEA and theoretical results are
tained within a safe level [19].
listed in Table 2. The absolute errors are less than 3%.
Finally, CLE describes the MCF with respect to PCF.
Thus, the finite element models are considered suffi-
It indicates load uniformity of the structure, which is
ciently accurate for further investigation.
expressed as:

CLE ¼ MCF 6 PCF (10)

Table 2. Theoretical and FEA results of MCF of H01 and F01.
Finite element model Theoretical results FEA Absolute errors (%)
3.2. Validation of the finite element model H01 36.71 35.91 2.22
H20 41.91 43.13 2.91
To confirm reliability and accuracy of numerical analysis, H40 50.83 52.24 2.77
F01 35.96 36.73 2.14
the finite element models for foam-filled multi-cell struc- F20 41.62 40.72 2.21
tures are validated via theoretical predictions developed F40 50.13 49.21 1.86
6 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

FEA(F01) FEA(F20) 80 FEA(H01) FEA(H20)

70
FEA(F40) Theoretical (F01) 70 FEA(H40) Theoretical (H01)
60 Theoretical (F20) Theoretical(F40) Theoretical (H20) Theoretical(H40)
60
50

MCF(KN)
50

MCF(KN)
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150
Displacement(mm) Displacement(mm)
(a) MCF of foam filled structures (b) MCF of honeycomb filled structures

Figure 4. MCF of different filling fashions.

4. Numerical analysis and discussion
4.1. Crashworthiness analysis of honeycomb-filled
multi-cell structures
In this section, honeycomb-filled structures of different
filling fashions subject to axial impact are explored. To
illustrate the effect of honeycomb filling at different parts
of the multi-cell column, Figure 5 summarised EA and
SEA of these structures by radar figures, in which the
values increase from inner layer to outer layer.
It can be seen from Figure 5(a) that EA steadily
increases as more cells are filled with honeycombs. Nota-
bly, the full-filling structure H41, possessing the highest
EA, absorbed 72.6% more energy than the empty col-
umn S00, a clear indication that honeycomb filling can
benefit the EA of thin-walled columns. Examining the
EA of four partially filled structures, we can know that
the increase is realised by placing honeycomb materials
at either the central or the corner cells of the column, as
H40 has the highest EA, followed by H21, H20 and H01.
Therefore, adding honeycombs exert tangible influence
on EA. However, it may harm the weight efficiency of
the structure in the meantime. To explore that, Figure 5
(b) plots the SEA of six structures. SEA of the six struc-
tures can be categorised into four groups: H40 and H41,
H20 and H21, H01 and S00. In this case, we found that
filling the corner cells, without filling the central cell is
preferable to filling the corner cells and the central cell
altogether, as SEA of H40 is slightly higher than H41,
and SEA of H20 is also higher than H21. Furthermore,
higher SEA is achieved by filling more corner cells, as
SEA of H40 is higher than H20 and S00, SEA of H41 is
higher than H21 and H01. This shows that filling the
corner cells is more favourable to filling the central cell,
when weight efficiency is considered as a primary
objective.
To account for the above results, the deformed shapes
of six honeycomb-filled columns with different filling
fashions are laid out in Figure 6. Though all columns
undergo progressive folding, they exhibit different fold-
ing characteristics. When honeycombs are filled into the
cells, the surrounding column walls deform more regu-
larly with increased number of folds. This is due to the
interaction effect which causes the column wall to buckle
outwards. As a result, the folding wave length is reduced,
and EA is increased. From the deformation graphs, it

Figure 5. EA and SEA of different honeycomb filling fashions.


Figure 6. Deformation of different honeycomb filling fashions.
can be observed that as the number of filled corner cells
increases, the collapsing behaviours improves, as H40
and H41 have more regular progressive collapsing than
H20 and H21, and S00 and H01 have the worst folding
characteristics. With respect to the central cell, when the
corner cells have already been filled, filling the central
cell cannot further alter the folding behaviour of its sur-
rounding column walls in a tangible manner. Therefore,
filling the central cell in addition to corner cells can
improve EA, but may not necessarily promote higher
SEA. And filling the central cell is only preferred when
the corner cells are empty, this confirms to the results
that SEA of H01 is higher than S00.
Furthermore, Figure 7 gives the PCF of different
thin-walled structures. Overall, PCF increases gradu-
ally from non-filling structure S00 to full-filling struc-
ture H41, as filled honeycombs gradually enhance the
stiffness of multi-cell structures. Notably, filling the
central cell adds around 6.0% to PCF, summarised
Figure 7. PCF of different honeycomb filling fashions.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 7
from the increment from H01 to S00, H21 to H20,
and H41 to H40. While filling two corner cells on
average increases PCF by 8.0%, summarised from the
step increment among S00, H20 and H40, and among
H01, H21 and H41. Taking into account the adverse
effect of filling central cell on EA, it can be concluded
that filling the central cell of the multi-cell column is
not favourable for crashworthiness.
Next, we looked into CLE, which describes load uni-
formity of honeycomb-filled structures, given in Figure 8.
It is noted that the CLE of filled structures is higher than
non-filled structure (S00), marked by the substantial
increment of 40.0% from S00 to H40, suggesting honey-
comb filling advantageous for loading uniformity. In
addition, it is worth noting that CLE of H40 is slightly
higher than full-filling H41, indicating the superiority of
partial filling for achieving stable load response.
Figure 8. CLE of different honeycomb filling fashions.
8 Y. ZHANG ET AL.
Overall, considering SEA, loading uniformity (CLE)
and deformed shapes, it can be concluded that partial
filling structure H40 possesses most promising crash-
worthiness among the structures discussed above.
4.2. Crashworthiness analysis of foam-filled multi-
cell square structures
Foam is another class of widely deployed lightweight cel-
lular material, hence it is of interest to investigate the
crashworthiness of partial and full foam filling struc-
tures. Figure 9(a) presents EA of these structures, in
which full-filling structure F41 has the largest EA, fol-
lowed by F40, F21, F20, F01 and S00. Notably, the mini-
mally foam-filled F01 absorbed 15.1% more energy than
non-filled S00. These give clear indication of the merit of
foam filling. Furthermore, EA increases as more cells are
filled with foams, in similar fashion with honeycomb-
filled structures. However, adding foam material does
not always favour weight efficiency, either, as Figure 9
(b) shows. Here, SEA of all filled structures is lower than
non-filled structure S00, except for F20, which has the
highest SEA. Especially, the full filled structure F41
marks the lowest, as is opposite to EA. Hence, partial
foam filling is more advantageous to full foam filling for
maximum weight efficiency. With respect to filling cor-
ner cell and central cell, as both F40 and F20 outperform
their counterparts F41 and F21, it is safe to state that fill-
ing the corner cells, leaving central cell empty is the
most effective scheme, in accordance to the findings
obtained from honeycomb-filled structures.
Figure 10 provides the deformed shapes of the six
multi-cell structures to illustrate the differences of fold-
ing behaviours. It also shows that foam-filled structures
generally produce larger number of folds with shorter
Figure 9. EA and SEA of different foam filling fashions.
wavelength, making the plastic deformation of tube walls
more efficient, hence increases total EA. Compare the
deformed shapes of S00 with F01, and F20 with F21, one
can tell that filling the central cell with foam leads to
more stabilised folds.
The PCF of different foam-filled structures is com-
pared in Figure 11. Non-filled structure S00 marks the
lowest PCF, while full-filled structure F41 marks the
highest PCF. In between the PCF of partially filled struc-
tures increases with the number of filled cells, as foam
filler enhances axial stiffness of these structures. With
respect to different filling schemes, PCF of F20 is almost
on par with F01- among the lowest for filled structures.
While PCF of F21 is 6.3% higher than F20, and PCF of
F40 is only 2.1% higher than F21. Therefore, central cell
filling causes higher peak force than corner cell filling,
and F20 is the best candidate for reducing peak crushing
load.
Finally, Figure 12 plots CLE of six foam-filled
structures. It is noted that the CLE of filled structures
is higher than non-filled S00, in which the largest
improvement is marked by a 44.4% increment of F41
with respect to S00. It suggests foam filling promotes
better load uniformity. As for the differences between
different filling fashions, CLE of F20 is 11.1% higher
than F01, while CLE of F21 is only 6.0% higher than
F20, and CLE of F40 is 8.5% higher than F21, there-
fore, it can be stated that corner cell filling is prefera-
ble to central cell filling.
Overall, F20 possesses most desirable crashworthiness
characteristics with regards to peak load and EA. Com-
paring with full-filling structures F41, which absorbed
most energy, F20 is advantageous for 7.1% higher SEA,
and 15.1% lower PCF. These credit F20 as the best
energy absorber among the six structures.

Figure 10. Deformation of different foam filling fashions.
Figure 11. PCF comparison of different foam filling fashions.
Figure 12. CLE of different foam filling fashions.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 9
4.3. Crashworthiness analysis of compound filling
structures
As both honeycombs and foams demonstrated superior
efficiency as filler materials, compound filling is then
conceived and implemented in multi-cell thin-walled
tubes, as shown in Figure 3(c). EA and SEA of these
structures are summarised in Figure 13. From Figure 13
(a), it is seen that compound filled structures absorbed
more energy than non-filled structure S00. Especially,
the top H40F01 absorbed 70.8% more EA than S00,
proving compound filling as an effective filling scheme.
Besides, all full compound filling structures (H01F40,
H40F01, H20F21 and H21F20) absorbed more energy
than partial filling structures. The use of honeycombs or
foams doesn't alter the results greatly, as EA of H40F01,
H20F21 and H21F20 is very close, and is only slightly
higher than that of H01F40. For the partial filling struc-
tures, H20F20 absorbed 7.8% more energy than H20F01
and H01F20, confirming that filling four corners is more
advantageous to filling two corner cells and the central
cell. On the other hand, Figure 13(b) shows the effect of
various compound filling schemes on SEA. The non-
filled structure S00 is still the lowest, while H40F01 is
the top performer, followed by H21F20, H20F21 and
H01F40. Specifically, SEA of H40F01 is 6.0% and 15.2%
than H21F20 and H20F21, respectively, showing honey-
comb is more weight efficient than foams for full com-
pound filling structures. While for partial compound
10 Y. ZHANG ET AL.
Figure 13. SEA of different honeycomb and foam filling fashions.
filling structures, SEA of H20F01 and H20F20 are close,
and is 9.1% higher than H01F20. Notably, SEA of
H20F01 is higher than full compound filling structure
H01F40 and H20F21, suggesting that high EA may not
necessarily lead to high SEA.
Additionally, the deformed shapes of the honeycomb
and foam compound filling structures are shown in
Figure 14. It can be seen that compound filling improves
the crashworthiness of multi-cell square tubes not only
by adding more materials, but also by triggering regular
progressive folds of tube walls with shorter wavelength,
improving the efficiency of the tube. Inspecting the use
of honeycombs and foams at the corner cells and central
cell for full-filling structures, H20F21, H21F20 and
H40F01 which exhibit more symmetric folds absorbed
more energy than H01F40. Moreover, the deformed
Figure 14. Deformation of different honeycomb and foam filling fashions.
shape of H40F01 is more irregular than H01F40, and the
deformed shape of H01F20 is less regular than H20F01.
Therefore, it can be concluded that filling the corner cells
with honeycombs is more advantageous to filling with
foams.
Figure 15 reveals the PCF of different compound fill-
ing schemes. As filling materials enhance the longitudi-
nal stiffness, the PCF of S00 is the lowest, in accordance
with partial or full honeycomb or foam filling. The PCF
of four full-filling compound structures is relative close,
in which the maximum gap is only 3.3%, between
H40F01 and H20F21. Similarly, PCF of partial filling
structures (H01F20, H20F01 and H20F20) is also close.
Generally, PCF of full compound filling structures is on
average 6.5% higher than partial compound filling
structures.

Figure 15. PCF comparison of different honeycomb and foam filling fashions.
Figure 16 further presents CLE of different com-
pound filling structures. Non-filled structure S00 has the
worst load uniformity, as CLE of S00 is the lowest. Com-
pound filling can improve load uniformity of the multi-
cell square tube greatly, as H40F01 and H01F20, featur-
ing the highest and lowest CLE among the filled struc-
tures, improved CLE by 40.1% and 26.7%, respectively.
Comparing the full and partial filling schemes, full com-
pound filling structures yield higher CLE than partial
compound filling structures. Specifically, CLE of
H40F01 is 10.5% higher than H01F20. Furthermore,
CLE of the different full compound filling structures or
partial compound filling structures does not exhibit
much difference. Overall, it can be noted that H40F01
possesses better crashworthiness performance among all
structures.
To summarise, H40F01 exhibits most desirable
crashworthiness characteristics, representing a filling
scheme of using honeycombs for corner cells, and
foam for central cell. Such a scheme promotes high
EA and load uniformity. However, its crashworthi-
ness, together with honeycomb-filled and foam filled-
structures, are dependent upon material properties
and geometric dimensions. Hence, structural optimi-
sation is implemented to explore the optimal designs
of filled structures.
Figure 16. CLE of different honeycomb and foam filling fashions.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 11
5. Multiobjective crashworthiness optimisation
5.1. Optimisation problem formulation
According to Section 4, three structures, namely H40,
F20 and H40F01, have excellent crashworthiness in their
groups. Next, optimisation scheme is introduced to seek
parameters that deliver optimal crashworthiness for
these three structures. With lightweight design and fuel
efficiency in consideration, SEA is selected as a design
objective. On the other hand, PCF of thin-walled struc-
tures should be contained under a safe level, so it is also
considered as a design objective. Furthermore, as maxi-
mising SEA and minimising PCF are conflicting objec-
tives for thin-walled structures, only multiobjective
optimisation schemes can apply. In addition, comparing
with single objective optimisation, which only yields one
optimal solution, the Pareto front derived from a multi-
objective optimisation scheme offers a series of optimal
design points, which allows wider design freedom for
engineers. From literature, it is known that thickness of
tube wall and honeycomb cell, as well as density of foam
have substantial influence on crashworthiness of filled
structures [6,27]. Therefore, tube wall thickness T, hon-
eycomb wall thickness t and foam density r are chosen
as the design parameters. The multi-objective problem
of three filling structures can be described as:
12 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

The optimisation problem of H40 can be written as: Table 3. Errors of different metamodels for H40, F20 and
H40F01.
8 Design parameters emax (%) eavg (%) R2
< min PCF;SEA
H40 PCF 2.31 1.13 0.95
s:t: 0:8 mmT1:5 mm (15)
: F20
SEA
PCF
2.85
1.26
1.59
2.41
0.97
0.92
0:01 mmt0:1 mm
SEA 2.95 3.02 0.96
H40F01 PCF 3.23 1.92 0.98
where T and t are the wall thickness of multi-cell square SEA 2.78 2.46 0.91
tube and honeycomb cell walls, respectively.
1 X jyi  ^yi j
The optimisation problem of F20 can be formulated q

as follows: eavg ¼ (19)

q 1 jyi j
8 Xq
< min PCF;SEA ðyi  ^yi Þ2
R2 ¼ 1  Xi¼1
q (20)
s:t: 0:8 mmT1:5 mm (16) ðy  yÞ2
: i¼1 i
0:2 g 6 cm3 r0:5g 6 cm3
where q is the number of the sample points, yi is design
where T is the wall thickness of multi-cell square tube response obtained from FEA, ^y i is design response pre-
and r is the foam density. dicted by the metamodel andy is the mean value of yi . For
Finally, the optimisation problem of H40F01 is Equation (20), R2 approximating 1 indicates higher accu-
expressed as racy of the metamodels.
8 Here, 10 additional sample points are selected to vali-
>
> min PCF;SEA
>
< s:t: date the Kriging metamodels of SEA and PCF, with the
0:8 mmT1:5 mm accuracy indicators summarised in Table 3. The values
(17)
>
> 0:01mmt0:1mm of emax and eavg are less than 4%, and R2 is very close to
>
:
0:2g 6 cm3 r0:5 g 6 cm3 1, suggesting sufficient level of accuracy for Kriging
metamodels to predict the design objectives. Therefore,
where T and t are the wall thickness of multi-cell square the Kriging metamodels are adopted in the following
tube and honeycomb cell walls, respectively, and r is the optimisation design.
foam density.

5.2 Kriging metamodel and validation 5.3. Optimisation results analysis

To avoid high computational cost of FEA, surrogate
models are adopted as a common and practical approach
in crashworthiness optimisation designs. Typically used
metamodel methods include polynomial response surface,
radial basis function, Kriging, support vector regression,
artificial neural network [3], etc. Among these, Kriging
method is able to maintain good accuracy when approxi-
mating highly nonlinear crashworthiness responses.
Thus, Kriging method is adopted to construct metamo-
dels for the crashworthiness design objective (SEA and
PCF). The methodology of Kriging method can be con-
sulted from Refs. [16]. First, Latin Hypercube Sampling
selected 30 sample points in the design space. After
To seek the Pareto fronts of the multiobjective optimisa-
tion problems as defined in Equations (15), (16) and
(17), multiobjective particle swarm optimisation
(MOPSO), a highly efficient algorithm that quickly con-
verges at global minimums was employed. Pareto fronts
of H40, F20 and H40F01 with respect to SEA and PCF
are shown in Figure 17. The Pareto front of H40 is
beneath that of F20 and H40F01, which indicates H40
delivers higher SEA given the same PCF. This gives
140
H40
120 F20
H40F01
PCF (KN)

acquiring their design responses via FEA, Kriging meta-

100
models of SEA and PCF are constructed, which are then
examined for inaccuracy. To do so, several criteria are 80
used to measure the error of metamodels, which are max-
60
imum relative error (emax), average relative error (eavg)
and the R-square (R2), respectively. They are described as: 40
  -35 -31 -27 -23 -19 -15
jyi  ^y i j SEA (KJ/Kg)
emax ¼ max (18)
i 2 ð1;......; qÞ jyi j Figure 17. Pareto fronts of H40, F20 and H40F01.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRASHWORTHINESS 13

Table 4. Optimal design parameters of H40, F20 and H40F01.

PCF(KN) SEA (KJ/Kg)
T (mm) t (mm) P (g/cm3) Kriging FEA Relative error (%) Kriging FEA Relative error (%)

H40 0.99 0.06 — 100.49 101.83 1.33 31.11 31.43 1.03

F20 1.34 — 0.34 100.03 100.95 0.92 23.13 23.45 1.38
H40F01 1.32 0.03 0.23 100.10 101.23 1.13 27.83 28.09 0.93

strong evidence that crashworthiness of H40 is superior
to F20 and H40F01. Moreover, the Pareto front of F20
locates on the top, suggesting its crashworthiness infe-
rior to the other two partially filled structures. To sum
up, honeycombs are preferable as filler materials in par-
tial honeycomb-filled or compound filling structures.
Besides, to further validate the accuracy of the optimi-
sation results, Table 4 lists optimal design parameters for
three structures setting PCF to 100 kN. The relative
errors of SEA and PCF between optimal design obtained
by Kriging metamodels and FEA are less than 2%.
Therefore, the accuracy of the optimisation scheme is
sufficient for guiding engineering designs. In accordance
with the Pareto fronts, SEA of honeycomb-filled struc-
tures (H40) is higher than foam filled structures (F20)
and compound filled structures (H40F01), which
absorbs 34.5% and 11.8% more energy than F20 and
H40F01, respectively. Furthermore, Figure 18 presents
the deformed shapes of initial design and optimal design
for H40, F20 and H40F01, all optimal designs exhibit
more stable and regular progressive folds. Moreover, it is
noted that the optimal deformed shapes of H40 and
H40F01 are visibly more controlled than H20. These
suggest the effectiveness of the multiobjective
optimisation scheme for guiding the design of novel
composite energy absorbers.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, the crashworthiness of honeycomb-filled,
foam-filled and compound filled multi-cell thin-wall
structures are investigated and improved using nonlin-
ear finite element analysis and multi-objective optimisa-
tion design method. The main findings of the present
study are outlined as follows:
1. Filler material can greatly improve the EA of thin-
walled structures. However, it may impose adverse
effect for SEA.
2. For single material filled structures, filling the cor-
ner cells of the multi-cell thin-walled structure
with honeycomb or foam is preferable to filling the
central cell. Especially, partially filled structure
H40 and F20 exhibit better crashworthiness than
other structures.
3. For compound filling structures, filling the corner
cells with honeycombs and central cell with foams
gives desirable crashworthiness characteristics,
marked by H40F01 among other compound filling
structures.
4. Multiobjective optimisation indicates that partial
honeycomb filling fashions are effective for light-
weight energy absorbers.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
The National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant
number 51675190], [grant number 51305143]: Fujian Prov-
ince Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number
2015J01204]: Promotion Program for Young and Middle-aged
Figure 18. The comparison of original deformation and opti-
Teacher in Science and Technology Research of Huaqiao Uni-
mised deformation.
versity [grant number ZQN-PY202].
14 Y. ZHANG ET AL.
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