FINAL PROJECT

STRUCTURAL CRASHWORTHINESS

ALVIAN IQBAL HANIF NASRULLAH

23618015

MAGISTER PROGRAM
FACULTY OF MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
INSTITUT TEKNOLOGI BANDUNG
2019

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 The effect of different shapes of holes on the crushing characteristics of
aluminum square windowed tubes under dynamic axial loading
Nikkhah H, Guo F, Chew Y, Bai J, Song J, Wang P

1. Abstract
In this paper, the crushing responses of tubes with different shapes of windows as well
as the simple tube are investigated under axial and oblique loading conditions.
Numerical model as constructed with FE code LSDYNA and was validated by
experiment. The model was then employed for the dynamic crush simulation of each
tube at different load angles. The initial peak, crush force efficiency, energy absorption
and specific energy absorption of windowed and simple tubes were compared and their
overall crushing performances were evaluated by TOPSIS method. The results have
proven the effectiveness of introducing windows to improve the tube's crushing
performance and have showed that square and rectangle are the best window shapes.

2. Geometry and Loading Model

The simple tubes considered is of square cross-section, with width being 35 mm, length
being 90 mm and wall thickness being 2 mm. The windowed tubes considered in the
numerical simulation is presented in Fig. 1.
FE code LS-DYNA was adopted for the axial and oblique crushing simulation. The
sketch of loading arrangement is shown in Fig. 1. The bottom end of the tube is fixed
onto the base plate and the top of the tube is free. The base plate is fixed. The rigid wall
only moves in vertical direction and cannot rotate. The rigid wall, with mass 500 kg,
impacts vertically onto the tube at an load angle, θ, which ranges of 0°, 10°, and 35°.
The mass was chosen to ensure that all the tubes could be fully crushed. The speed of
impact is 15 m/s, which a typical value used for the automobile crashworthiness
application, for dynamic simulation and 1 mm/minute for quasi-static simulation.

Fig. 1. Loading arrangement of the tube

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3. FE Simulation
The tube was meshed with Belytschko-Tsay 4-node shell elements. Such element is
suitable for the simulation of large structural deformation and has been adopted in
previous studies on energy absorption. The edge length of the element is 2 mm and
there are 5 integration points through the wall thickness. Both the wall and the base
plate were modelled as rigid body. Automatic single surface contact and surface to
surface contact was adopted for the simulation of tube's self-contact and tube-to-wall
contact respectively during the impact. The friction coefficient was 0.15. To take
account the inevitable manufacturing error, small imperfection was introduced to the
tube by superimposing the first four buckling modes onto the tube wall only on quasi-
static case. Each buckling mode has a constant magnitude of 0.05 mm. The
imperfection magnitude is large enough to trigger correct collapse mode and yield
initial peak force and energy absorption with good accuracy. To make faster
computation, mass scaling is performed. The FE is presented in Fig 2.
The tubes were made of Aluminum alloy AA6060-T4, with density being 2700kg/m3,
Young's modulus being 68 GPa, and Poisson's ratio being 0.33. The strain-rate effect is
ignored as aluminum is not strain-rate sensitive.

Fig. 2. FE simulation
4. Result
The result will show the instantaneous force compared with simulation and experiment
from Nikkhah et al.’s paper, mean crushing force (MCF), folding length (2H), the
deformation shape, the initial peak force, bar chart of energy absorption, and verifying
quasi-static assumption.
1. Dynamic simulation at 0°
a. Instantaneous force
Force vs displacement graph can be seen on Fig 3.
Simulation Paper simulation Error (%)
Peak force (kN) 38.06 38.88 2.12
Energy absorption (J) 1277.29 1304.36 2.07
Mean crushing force (kN) 19.85 19.44 2.07
Folding length (mm) 25.26 26.53 4.81

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 45
40
35
30
Force (kN) 25
Paper (LS-Dyna)
20
MCF
15
Simulation
10
5
0
-20 -5 0 20 40 60 80
Displacement (mm)

Fig 3. Instantaneous force for 0° dynamic simulation

b. Deformation shape
Shape of deformation as function of time is presented in Fig 4. Fig 4(e) is
deformation shape from paper simulation at 73% of displacement. Type of
deformation is extensional.

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Fig 4. Deformation at (a) 1 ms, (b) 2 ms, (c) 3 ms, (d) 4.4 ms, (e) Paper simulation

2. Quasi-static simulation at 0°
a. Instantaneous force
Force vs displacement graph is presented in Fig 5.
Simulation Paper experiment Error (%)
Peak force (kN) 24.66 24.78 0.49
Energy absorption (J) 894.59 912.67 1.92
Mean crushing force (kN) 13.62 13.88 1.93
Folding length (mm) 18.87 21.55

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 30

25

20

Force (kN) 15 Paper (Experiment)

Simulation
10
Pm
5

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Displacement (mm)

Fig 5. Instantaneous force for 0° quasi-static simulation

b. Deformation shape
Shape of deformation as function of time is presented in Fig 6. Type of
deformation is inextentional.

Fig 6. Deformation of paper experiment and simulation

c. Quasi-static validation
To prove quasi-static is valid, energy kinetic and potential were ploted in Fig7.
Quasi-static assumption is valid when Ekin << Epot. From simulation result, the
quasi-static assumption is verified by insignificant kinetic energy compared to
potential energy, 5.47 10-10<< 1.09 103.

Fig 7. Quasi-static validation

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 3. Dynamic simulation at 10°
a. Instantaneous force
Force vs displacement graph can be seen on Fig 8.
Simulation Paper simulation Error (%)
Peak force (kN) 28.02 23.92 17.16
Energy absorption (J) 1176.08 1131.61 3.93
Mean crushing force (kN) 17.91 17.22 3.93
Folding length (mm) 8.30

35

30

25
Force (kN)

20
Paper (FE)
15
Simulation
10 Pm

0
0 20 40 60 80
Displacement (mm)

Fig 8. Instantaneous force for 10° dynamic simulation

b. Deformation shape
Shape of deformation as function of time is presented in Fig 9. Fig 9(e) is
deformation shape from paper simulation at 73% of displacement. Type of
deformation is extentional.

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Fig 9. Deformation at (a) 1 ms, (b) 2 ms, (c) 3 ms, (d) 4.4 ms, (e) Paper simulation

4. Dynamic simulation at 35°

a. Instantaneous force
Force vs displacement graph can be seen on Fig 10.
Simulation
Peak force (kN) 16.92

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 Energy absorption (J) 770.55
Mean crushing force (kN) 11.73
Folding length (mm) 17.54

20
18
16
14
Force (kN)

12
10
8 Simulation
6 Pm
4
2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Displacement (mm)

Fig 10. Instantaneous force for 35° dynamic simulation

b. Deformation shape
Shape of deformation as function of time is presented in Fig 11. Type of
deformation is extentional.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Fig 11. Deformation at (a) 1 ms, (b) 2 ms, (c) 3 ms, (d) 4.4 ms

5. Theoretical Analysis

Theoretical analysis is used to determine mean crushing force (Pm) and folding length
(2H). Theoretical analysis is performed on quasi-static and dynamic square model of
0°. There are two types of folding, inextensional mode and extensional mode. The
equation of both extensional and inextensional mode are different. Dynamic simulation
model do not use cowper symond equation because aluminum is non-sensitif material.
a. Dynamic simulation 0°
Mode that occurs in this simulation is extensional mode. The equation of
extensional mode can be seen below.
𝑃𝑚 = 6.08 𝜎0 𝑡 3/2 𝐶 1/2
where
t = thickness of the shell

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 C = width of square shell
𝜎0 = flow stress
3 2 𝜎𝑦 𝜎𝑢 2
𝜎0 = √
(𝑛 + 1)2 (𝑛 + 2)
𝜎𝑦 = yield stress
𝜎𝑢 = ultimate stress
𝑛 = power law hardening

Value of t and C is geometry model, which t=2 mm and C=35 mm. Property of
𝜎𝑦 , 𝜎𝑢 , and 𝑛 are material properties, which 𝜎𝑦 =0.72 GPa, 𝜎𝑢 =0.167 GPa, and
𝑛=0.3. Those,

3 2 ∗ 72065000 ∗ 1670520002
𝜎0 = √ = 101145772 𝑃𝑎
(0.3 + 1)2 (0.3 + 2)
3 1
𝑃𝑚 = 6.08 ∗ 101145772 ∗ 0.0022 ∗ 0.0352 = 10290.35 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑡𝑜𝑛

Mean crushing force of dynamic simulation 0° is 10.29 kN.

For determining folding length on extensional mode, the equation below used.
𝑐
𝐻 = √2 ∗ √ ∗ 𝑡
𝑡
0.035
𝐻 = √2 ∗ √ ∗ 0.002 = 0.0118 𝑚
0.002
Folding length (2H) of dynamic simulation 0° is 23.66 mm.

b. Quasi-static simulation 0°
Mode that occurs in this simulation is inextensional mode. The equation of
inextensional mode can be seen below.
𝑃𝑚 = 13.05 𝜎0 𝑡 5/3 𝐶 1/3
By insert properties above to equation,
5 1
𝑃𝑚 = 13.05 ∗ 101145772 ∗ 0.0023 0.0353 = 13655.17 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑡𝑜𝑛

Mean crushing force of quasi-static simulation 0° is 13.66 kN.

For determining folding length on inextensional mode, equation below used.

𝐻 = 𝑐 2/3 ∗ 𝑡1/3
2 1
𝐻 = 0.0353 ∗ 0.0023 = 0.0135 𝑚
Folding length (2H) of quasi-static simulation 0° is 26.96 mm.

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6. Analysis

Comparison of the results of numerical simulations conducted with the data contained
in the paper has differences. The most obvious difference is the instantaneous force on
quasi-static 0°. This is due to several things, including the following
a. The geometry of perturbation data used in quasi-static numerical simulations are not
detailed in the paper.
b. Mass scalling used in numerical simulations makes the results inaccurate. Mass –
scalling concept forces the property of shell to change. If not using mass-scalling
concept, the simulation lasts for several days.

Energy absorption is compared for each case on Fig 12. In general, the smaller angle of
impactor, the greater the energy that can be absorb by the shell structure in the same
mode of folding. Mode that occurs in the case of dynamic loads with an impactor angle
of 0°, 10°, and 35° is extensional mode. When compared to the same case, structure
that undergo inextensional mode has absorbed energy that is smaller than extensional
mode. This happens because in extensional mode there is additional energy to open the
conical surface at the corner of the structure and bend of deformations along inclined,
while in inextensional mode does not occur.

1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
1

0° extensional mode 0° inextensional mode 10° 35°

Fig 12. Comparison of absorption energy

7. Conclusion
From the results of the numerical simulation and analysis above, it can be shown as
follows:
a. Instantaneous force generated from numerical simulations have differences with the
results in the paper. This is caused by several factors, namely perturbation geometry
and mass scaling..
b. The smaller angle of impactor, the greater energy that can be absorbed by the shell
structure in the same mode of folding.
c. When compared to the same case, structure that undergo inextensional mode has
absorbed energy that is smaller than extensional mode.

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Reference
Nikkhah H, Gui F, Chew Y, Bai J, Song J, Wang P. 2017. The effect of different shapes of holes on
the crushing characteristics of aluminum square windowed tubes under dynamic axial loading,
Thin-Walled Structures. 119. 412-420.
Jones N. 1989. Structural Impact. The university of Liverpool.

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