Engineering Optimization

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Crushing analysis and multi-objective optimization

of different length bi-thin walled cylindrical
structures under axial impact loading

Ali Ahmadi Dastjerdi, Hamid Shahsavari, Arameh Eyvazian & Faris Tarlochan

To cite this article: Ali Ahmadi Dastjerdi, Hamid Shahsavari, Arameh Eyvazian & Faris
Tarlochan (2019): Crushing analysis and multi-objective optimization of different length bi-
thin walled cylindrical structures under axial impact loading, Engineering Optimization, DOI:
10.1080/0305215X.2018.1562551

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ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/0305215X.2018.1562551

Crushing analysis and multi-objective optimization of different

length bi-thin walled cylindrical structures under axial impact
loading
Ali Ahmadi Dastjerdia , Hamid Shahsavarib , Arameh Eyvazianc and Faris Tarlochanc
a Mechanical Engineering Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands; b Mechanical
Engineering Department, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran; c Mechanical Engineering Department, College of
Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article attempts to increase the crashworthiness characteristics of Received 22 September 2017
energy absorbers. It is found that the effect of the bi-tubular arrangement Accepted 13 December 2018
on the energy absorption and peak force is nonlinear. This nonlinearity KEYWORDS
is somewhat related to friction but is mostly related to the changing of Bi-thin walled cylindrical
buckling modes. Therefore, it is possible to reach higher Specific Absorbed tubes; impact loading;
Energy (SAE) in the bi-tubular case than with two tubes since the weight optimal design; neural
is the same in both arrangements while the energy absorption is higher network; genetic algorithm
in the bi-tubular case. To exploit this, multi-objective optimization of bi-
thin walled cylindrical aluminium tubes under axial impact loading is per-
formed. The absorbed energy and the SAE are considered as the objective
functions while the maximum crush load is regarded as a constraint. Finally,
the optimal dimensions of tubes are found in order to maximize the SAE and
energy absorption for a specified maximum crushing force.

1. Introduction
As the number of vehicles and their speed increase, multiple problems become apparent. One of these
is that the possibility of car crashes and human injuries have risen and losses due to vehicle accidents
have considerably increased in recent decades (Feczko et al. 1992; Kashani et al. 2013). Thus, it is vital
to solve this problem in order to reduce damage (Xia et al. 2018). There are many characteristics that
can potentially increase the safety of vehicles. One of these characteristics, which car producers have
focused on, is the vehicle crashworthiness specifications (Kaushik and Ramani 2014).
Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to save its occupants during an impact (Garner and
Adams 2008). Different criteria, which depend on the type of impact loading and vehicle, have been
proposed to determine the crashworthiness of structures (Pickett et al. 2004). Some important cri-
teria include the deformation patterns of the vehicle structure, the acceleration experienced by the
occupants during an impact and the probability of injury predicted by human body models (Pickett
et al. 2004). One of the most important methods to increase the safety of vehicles is the use of energy
absorbers in different parts of the vehicle’s body (Duan et al. 2017a). The energy absorber system
transforms a part of the kinetic energy into another form of energy to reduce the losses due to acci-
dents. There are two types of energy absorber: reversible energy absorbers, such as elastic damper
dashpots for low impact loading, and collapsible energy absorbers, which transform kinetic energy
into plastic deformation energy (Alghamdi 2001; Mirzaei et al. 2011).

CONTACT Hamid Shahsavari Hamid.shahal@gmail.com

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

To understand crashworthiness behaviour better, several parameters are defined such as absorbed
energy, Specific Absorbed Energy (SAE), mean load, Crush Force Efficiency (CFE) and Peak Crushing
Force (PCF). Energy absorption (E) is calculated as follows:
 d
E= F(x) dx, (1)
0

where F(x) and d are the instantaneous crushing force and the maximum displacement, respectively.
Also, SAE is given by
E
SAE = , (2)
MT
where MT is the total mass of the structure. The mean load is the average of the instantaneous crushing
force, which is in the form
E
Fmean = . (3)
d
The CFE is defined as the ratio of Fmean to the PCF and is given by

Fmean
CFE = . (4)
PCF
PCF is another important factor in the design of energy absorbers, and determines the occupants’
damage rate including occupants’ injury and even death (Liao et al. 2008). It is obvious that an ideal
energy absorber has high values of absorbed energy, SAE and CFE, and a low value of PCF.
Many researchers have studied the energy absorption capability of thin-walled structures
(Abramowicz 2003; Nia and Hamedani 2010; Sun et al. 2010; Acar et al. 2011; Yin et al. 2014; Ying
et al. 2016; Duan et al. 2017b). Collapsible energy absorbers are of various types, such as circular
and square tubes, corrugated tubes, frusta, tapered tubes, octagonal cross section tubes, honeycomb
cells and S-shaped frames (Zarei and Kröger 2008; Nia and Parsapour 2014; Esmaeili-Marzdashti,
Pirmohammad, and Esmaeili-Marzdashti 2017). One of the most practical energy absorbers is a cir-
cular metal tube, due to more efficient energy absorption, simplified manufacturing and low cost
(Salehghaffari et al. 2010; Najafi, Acar, and Rais-Rohani 2014).
Some researchers have focused on obtaining a relation for predicting crashworthiness behaviours
of energy absorbers. Mamalis et al. (1991) proposed a theoretical model to predict the crushing
behaviour of bi-material circular tubes and compared it with the experimental result. Moreover,
Alexander (1960) expounded a theory for predicting the collapse load of a thin cylindrical shell and
derived a formula to approximate it. In Alexander’s formula, the collapse load bears a linear relation
with the thickness and squared diameter of the tube. El-Hage, Mallick, and Zamani (2006) intro-
duced a numerical investigation of the quasi-static axial crush performance of aluminium composite
hybrid square tubes. They obtained an empirical equation for predicting the mean crush force of
hybrid tubes. Furthermore, Lanzi, Bisagni, and Ricci (2004) used neural networks in crashworthi-
ness problems. In their research, design points for the training process were obtained by explicit finite
element analyses performed by PAM-CRASH. Karagiozova, Alves, and Jones (2000) investigated the
axisymmetric buckling of elastic–plastic cylindrical shells subjected to an axial impact load using
finite element analysis. They found that the inertia characteristics and material properties determine
particular patterns of axial stress wave propagation.
Additionally, several studies have been devoted to investigating the effects of parameters such
as geometry dimensions, the arrangement of tubes, material properties, adding discontinuities, etc.
on the crashworthiness behaviour of energy absorbers. Kashani et al. (2013) investigated the crash
behaviour of bi-tubular square thin-walled tubes with different arrangements under quasi-static axial
compression loading. They found that when the inner tube is shorter than the outer one, the PCF
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 3

remains the same as that of the outer tube, while the mean load increases considerably. Also, Alavi-
jeh, Sadeghnejad, and Sadighi (2012) analysed the specific buckling load of a cylindrical grid stiffened
shell created by a Kagome unit cell and studied the geometrical parameters’ effects on the specific
buckling load. Eyvazian et al. (2014) looked into the influence of corrugations on the crush behaviour
of circular tubes and found that corrugations improve the crashworthiness characteristics, controlla-
bility and collapse modes of circular tubes under axial loading. Furthermore, Rouzegar et al. (2015)
studied the effect of geometrical discontinuities on the energy absorption characteristics of tubular
structures. They concluded that, depending on the notch positions, the number of notches on the
walls of the structures may increase or decrease the energy absorption capability.
Another area which is interesting for researchers is the optimization of the crashworthiness char-
acteristics of energy absorbers (Sun et al. 2011; Aspenberg, Jergeus, and Nilsson 2013; Shi, Yang, and
Zhu 2013; Duan et al. 2017a; Hamza and Shalaby 2014). Costas et al. (2014) optimized the SAE and
Load Ratio (LR) of a frontal crash absorber made of steel reinforced with glass-fibre polyamide. Based
on a surrogate-based multi-objective optimization technique, they obtained the thickness of the dif-
ferent parts, the geometry of the cross section and the offsets of the reinforcement parts as design
variables. Furthermore, Stander et al. (2004) investigated three methods for crashworthiness opti-
mization: the successive linear response surface method, the updated neural network method and
the Kriging method. They maintained that the neural network and Kriging method require more
initial points and three methods have considerable efficiency when attempting to achieve a con-
verged result. In addition, Djamaluddin et al. (2015) optimized the crashworthiness characteristics of
foam-filled bi-tubular tubes under an oblique load by using the finite element method (FEM) and the
Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). Also, they understood that foam-filled bi-
tubular tubes behave better than empty bi-tubular and full foam tubes. Moreover, Aulig et al. (2014)
and Duddeck et al. (2016) optimized the crashworthiness characteristics of structures using topology
optimization.
Mirzaei et al. (2011) optimized the geometrical parameters of aluminium circular tubes in order to
maximize SAE while the maximum crush load should not exceed a certain value. They chose geomet-
ric dimensions of tubes including diameter, length and thickness as design variables and employed
NSGA to find the Pareto optimal solutions. Moreover, Djamaluddin et al. (2015) optimized the
crashworthiness of foam-filled tubular tubes under purely axial and oblique impact loadings to max-
imize SAE and minimize PCF. This optimization was constructed by NSGA-II and the Radial Basis
Function (RBF) method. Considering different configurations of structures, including Empty–Empty
double Tube (EET), foam Filled-Empty double Tube (FET) and Foam filled-Foam filled double Tube
(FFT), they found that FFT has better crashworthiness parameters than the others under pure axial
loading, and that FET is the best choice for structures under oblique loading. It can be claimed that
all optimizations have been performed on a single tube and the bi-tubular configuration has not been
investigated previously. Hence, in this work, the crashworthiness behaviour of the bi-tubular case is
compared with single tubes and its geometry is optimized to obtain high energy absorption and SAE
under specific constraints.
In this article, the crashworthiness behaviour of two tubes is examined and it is found that the
energy absorption of the bi-tubular arrangement is more than the summation of the energy absorp-
tion of each tube. Consequently, the SAE in the bi-tubular case is higher than for the two tubes since
the weight is the same in both. After that, similar to Mirzaei et al. (2011), the multi-objective opti-
mization procedure is applied to maximize the absorbed energy and SAE of bi-thin walled cylindrical
tubes under axial impact. The diameter, length and thickness of the tubes are optimized, while the
applied maximum crush load does not exceed the allowable limit. For this purpose, the FE code
ABAQUS/Explicit is used to predict the crashworthiness behaviour of bi-tubular cylinders. The crush
behaviour of tubes has been simulated in the finite element software ABAQUS/Explicit and the results
of the numerical simulation are compared with the experimental data (Mirzaei et al. 2011) to vali-
date the numerical simulation. The FEM simulation is very time consuming in the case of bi-tubular
cylinders. Moreover, optimization methods such as Genetic Algorithms (GAs) need many iterations
4 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

to converge to the answer. Hence, an artificial neural network is utilized to predict crashworthiness
parameters. In this way, the described FEM model is utilized to produce training and test sets for the
artificial neural network. Next, the optimization is performed by combining a GA with the artificial
neural network. Finally, the crashworthiness parameters of an axisymmetric arrangement of tubes
are compared with those of a non-axisymmetric arrangement of tubes.

2. Numerical simulation
The FE code ABAQUS/Explicit is used for the numerical simulation of the axial crushing of cylindri-
cal tubes under impact loading. As the crashworthiness behaviour of tubes depend on their buckling
modes, it is necessary to perturb the initial mesh of the tube by the buckling modes. For this pur-
pose, buckling analysis is initially performed to find eight elastic buckling modes using the FE code
ABAQUS/Standard for use in the crushing analysis. Figure 1 shows the boundary conditions used in
the axial crushing simulation.
In this respect, two cylindrical tubes are placed between two rigid walls—the bottom wall is
assumed to be completely fixed and the upper wall, which has a point mass of m = 300 kg, is fixed
in all degrees of freedom except the axial displacement (Mirzaei et al. 2011). In addition, the mass
has an initial velocity equal to 6.8 m s−1 , which is the same as the crush velocity of the experimental
set-up (Mirzaei et al. 2011). As declared in Mirzaei et al. (2011), after performing the mesh sensitiv-
ity analysis, the SA4 element with nine integration points through the shell thickness with a square
element size of 3 mm has enough accuracy to simulate the crashworthiness behaviour of cylindrical
tubes. Hence, in this study, a similar element with a size of 2 mm is selected to be sure about the accu-
racy of FEM solutions. Furthermore, in the bi-tubular case, mesh sensitivity analysis is performed,
which results in a mesh element size of 2 mm being found to be adequate for predicting the crash-
worthiness behaviour of bi-tubular cylinders. Self-contact is defined as being between the outer and
inner tubes, and surface-to-surface contact is defined as being between rigid walls and tubes. A fric-
tion coefficient equal to 0.2 is set in both self-contact and surface-to-surface contact. After applying
the described boundary conditions and defining the material properties, which are elaborated in the
next section, the dynamic explicit method is applied to find the acceleration and displacement of the
upper wall in each iteration. Thus, the acceleration of the upper wall is found as a function of dis-
placement (i.e. a = f(x)). Now, it is possible to find SAE and absorbed energy through (1) and (2). In
those equations, F(x) is substituted by ma(x) = 300a(x).

Figure 1. Boundary conditions of the numerical simulation.

 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 5

Table 1. Mechanical properties (Mirzaei et al. 2011).

Poisson ratio Tangent modulus (MPa) Elastic modulus (MPa) Density (kg m−3 )
0.3 66 77 2700

120

100

80
Stress(Mpa)

60

40

20

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Strain

Figure 2. Engineering static stress–strain curve of the aluminium alloy (Kashani et al. 2013).

Table 2. True stress–strain data points used for aluminium in the numerical simulation (Mirzaei
et al. 2011).
σ (N mm−2 ) 65 85 90 98 103.75 106.87 110.3
p 0 0.032 0.0463 0.082 0.132 0.182 0.263

2.1. Material properties

The mechanical properties of the aluminium tubes are tabulated in Table 1 (Mirzaei et al. 2011).
The aluminium is modelled as a linear elastic material with nonlinear isotropic work hardening in
the plastic region. An engineering static stress–strain is shown in Figure 2 (Mirzaei et al. 2011). The
approximated stress–plastic strain data points are obtained from this curve to use in the numerical
simulation (Table 2).

3. Validation
To assess the accuracy of ABAQUS numerical simulations in predicting the crushing behaviour of
bi-tubular circle-circle tubes, a numerical simulation has been compared with the results of an exper-
iment available in the literature (Mirzaei et al. 2011). The dimensions of the specimen and impact
velocity for the test are presented in Table 3. Also, this table presents corresponding values of PCF,
mean load, maximum displacement and specific SAE for these specimens obtained from the exper-
iment and numerical simulation. The collapsed modes of the specimen obtained by the numerical
simulation and experimental test in Mirzaei et al. (2011) are compared in Figure 3. This figure shows

Table 3. Validation of the numerical results with the experimental results of Mirzaei et al. (2011).
Fmax (kN) Fmean (kN) SAE (kJ kg−1 ) δmax (mm)
t (mm) D/t L/D V0 (m s−1 ) Exp. Sim. Exp. Sim. Exp. Sim. Exp. Sim.
2 36.9 2.03 6.8 41.87 40.13 30.02 27.42 17.52 15.8 117 110
6 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

Figure 3. Results for tube collapsing modes under axial impact load. (a) Numerical simulation (b) Experimental simulation (Mirzaei
et al. 2011).

Figure 4. Comparison of the crush load–displacement curve obtained from the numerical simulation and experimental test
(Mirzaei et al. 2011).

that the FE modelling can simulate the collapsing shape of the tube with reliable accuracy. Addition-
ally, the crush load–displacement curves obtained from the experimental (Mirzaei et al. 2011) and
numerical results are shown in Figure 4. The comparison of results demonstrates that there is a high
degree of compatibility between the numerical results of this article and the experimental results of
Mirzaei et al. (2011). There are 2, 9, 10 and 2% relative error between the experimental and the simu-
lated values of the parameters Fmax , Fmean , SAE and δmax , respectively. As a result, it can be concluded
that the numerical simulation can predict the collapsing shape and the crashworthiness parameters
of tubes with acceptable accuracy.

4. Comparison
In this section, the crashworthiness behaviour of different arrangements of tubes is investigated in
order to determine which arrangements absorb more energy. Since the mass is the same in the
four arrangements, the arrangement with highest absorbed energy also has the highest value of SAE
among these configurations. For this purpose, four different case studies are modelled with ABAQUS
and their results are compared with each other. These case studies are shown in Figure 5 and their
geometry specifications are tabulated in Table 4, in which the parameters are defined as follows:

(1) Ds (mm): the diameter of the small tube;

(2) Db (mm): the diameter of the big tube;
(3) Ls (mm): the length of the small tube;
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 7

Figure 5. Four case studies. (a) Case 1 (b) Case 2 (c) Case 3 and (d) Case 4.

Table 4. Geometry specification.

Case Ds (mm) Ls (mm) ts (mm) Db (mm) Lb (mm) tb (mm)
1 25 125 3 – – –
2 30 150 2 – – –
3 25 125 3 30 150 2
4 25 125 3 30 150 2

Figure 6. Buckling shapes of the four case studies. (a) Case 1 (b) Case 2 (c) Case 3 and (d) Case 4.

(4) Lb (mm): the length of the big tube;

(5) ts (mm): the thickness of the small tube;
(6) tb (mm): the thickness of the big tube.

In case studies 1 and 2, one tube is modelled as an energy absorber. In case 3, two tubes are placed in
parallel, and in case 4, the smaller tube is placed inside the bigger one. The results are listed in Table 5.
On the basis of the law of conservation of energy, the absorbed energy in case 4 must be equal to the
sum of the energy absorbed in cases 1 and 2. This claim is confirmed by the results obtained from cases
1, 2 and 4. Due to the loss of energy caused by the friction between the inner and outer tube in case 3
and the changing buckling modes in case 3, the energy absorbed in case 3 is more than that absorbed
in case 4. As shown in Figure 6, the buckling shapes of all four cases are different, and a change of
buckling mode has more effect than friction on the PCF, mean load, SAE and absorbed energy. The
force–displacement curves of case studies are depicted in Figure 7. It is obvious that curve 4 is equal
to the sum of curves 1 and 2, but curve 3 is little above curve 4. These curves confirm claims about the
8 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

Figure 7. Comparison of the crush load–displacement curves obtained by numerical simulation in the case studies.

Table 5. Results of case studies.

Energy
Case absorption (kJ) Mass (kg) SAE (kJ kg−1 ) Fmax (kN) Fmean (kN) CFE δmax (mm)
1 3.27 0.159 20.59 47.47 34.7 1.36 90
2 2.37 0.152 15.53 29.25 19.66 1.48 120
3 5.76 0.3116 18.49 95.63 51.75 1.84 110
4 5.64 0.3116 18.1 71.9 47.7 1.5 110

conservation energy and the effect of changing buckling mode shapes, which have been mentioned
before.

5. Neural networks to predict the crush behaviour of the tubes

In view of the fact that several simple calculating units called neurones are usually arranged in several
layers to produce a multi-layer artificial neural network, neurones are trained to predict the response
of input–output systems. A multi-layer artificial neural network includes an input layer, an output
layer and one or more hidden layers between the input and output layers. The number of input and
output variables equals the number of neurones in the input and output layers, respectively (Figure 8).
Relations between input and output variables are determined by a set of samples called the training
set. After this process, to prove the accuracy of the network, a verification stage is needed by taking
several input/output pairs called test sets. In order to optimize the behaviour of bi-tubular cylindrical
energy absorption, many numerical models are needed to produce a design domain. As FEM sim-
ulations consume so much time due to their complexity, an artificial neural network is employed to
predict crashworthiness parameters of bi-tubular cylinders under impact load. Thus, an artificial neu-
ral network with one hidden layer is produced and trained by a finite number of the FE simulations,
which are performed by ABAQUS/Explicit software. In this study, a neural network is designed to
predict the values of the SAE and the maximum force during axial crushing of bi-tubular cylinders
with an impact velocity which is constant at 7 m s−1 by MATLAB R
software. The design variables
vector consists of the diameter of the big tube, the difference between the diameter of the big and
small tubes and the length of the small tube. A two-layer feed-forward network with sigmoid hidden
neurones and linear output neurones fitnet (the name of a function) is obtained, which is appropriate
for fitting multi-dimensional mapping problems. The number of hidden neurones is set to five. The
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 9

Figure 8. Schematic of a one hidden-layer perceptron network.

Figure 9. Regression plots.

network is trained with the Levenberg–Marquardt back propagation algorithm trainlm (the name of
a function) (Hagan et al. 1996).

5.1. Training a test set

The training and test sets are defined in the domain 70 mm < Db < 140 mm, 45 mm < Ls < 110 mm
and 8 mm < Db − Ds < 16 mm. Also, this domain is considered as the optimization domain. The
training set involves 300 samples which are selected to ensure a random and homogeneous location
inside the design domain. The test set includes 75 uniform samples selected inside the design domain.
For this purpose, a total number of 375 ABAQUS/Explicit runs are carried out. The training proce-
dure continues until the mean square error becomes less than 0.9. Then, the test sets are used to find
the error of the network. The maximum relative error approached by the network is 6%. Also, the
relation between outputs and targets of the neural network is shown in Figure 9. If the slope of the fit
line becomes one (the ideal case, which is not possible in practice), the targets of simulation exactly
follow the outputs and prediction is precise. The slope of the designed network is found to be 0.85,
which indicates that the neural network is reliable.
10 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

Table 6. A general optimization problem.

Objective function Constraints Design variables
gi (x) < 0 ui ≤ xi ≤ vi
fi (x)
i = 1, 2, . . . , Nc i = 1, 2, . . . , Nd

6. Optimization
Although several types of crashworthiness optimization can be considered for a structure under
impact load (Fang et al. 2005; Asanjarani, Dibajian, and Mahdian 2017; Gao et al. 2018), all of them
can be generally formulated as shown in Table 6.
The parameters ui and vi are, respectively, the minimum and maximum bounds of the ith design
variable domain. Furthermore, Nc and Nd are, respectively, the number of constraints and the design
variables. In this research, the optimization problem is employed to maximize the absorbed energy
and SAE under an axial impact load. The diameter of the bigger tube, the length of the smaller tube,
and the difference between the diameters of the bigger and smaller tubes are considered as design
variables. As the energy absorbers have many applications and are used in various vehicles such as
trains, cars, ships, etc., and they are also manufactured in different ways, their dimensions can have
different constraints. Consequently, this optimization can be done under different constraints.
Apart from these facts, the crush load constraint is applied to reduce occupant injury. In this regard,
the maximum crush load must not exceed a specific value. Moreover, the design variable domains
consider how the crushing of tubes may be ensured in concertina or diamond modes (Mirzaei et
al. 2011). In addition, the difference between the radii of the big and small tube must be such that
they interact with each other. If they are placed too close, they can be considered as a single thick tube,
and if they are placed too far apart, they can be considered as two separate tubes. Thus, the objective
function used in this research is as follows:

Maximize : {Absorbed energy(Db , Ls , Db − Ds ), SAE(Db , Ls , Db − Ds )}, (5)

where its constraints are given as (Mirzaei et al. 2011)

Fmax ≤ 120 (kN) (6)

Lb
1≤ ≤4 (7)
Db
Ls
1≤ ≤ 4. (8)
Ds
Also, the design variable domains are of the following form (Mirzaei et al. 2011):

70 mm < Db < 140 mm (9)

45 mm < Ls < 110 mm (10)
8 mm < Db − Ds < 16 mm. (11)

According to the results published by Mirzaei et al. (2011), the optimal tube thickness to achieve
maximum energy and SAE is 3 mm. Therefore, in this study, the thicknesses of tubes are fixed and set
to 3 mm. Since the length of energy absorbers is usually fixed in the designing process, and to avoid
more complexity in computational aspects, the length of the bigger tube is set to 150 mm.

6.1. Optimization results

In this article, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm NSGA-II is used to obtain the Pareto
optimal solutions. The multi-objective optimization is applied through NSGA-II with help of an
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 11

Table 7. Parameter specifications for the NSGA-II algorithm.

Population size Number of generations Crossover probability Mutation probability
300 2500 80% 20%

Figure 10. Pareto front for the optimization design problem.

artificial neural network model. Parameters for NSGA-II (Mirzaei et al. 2011), which is performed
several times and produces results with nice repeatability, are tabulated in Table 7. Note that the
optimum percentage of maturation is above five (Haupt 2000), and this fact is considered in this
optimization. The results have been depicted in Figure 10. These 32 points represent the Pareto opti-
mal solutions that explain the exchange between absorbed energy and the SAE. The results show that
two crashworthiness factors have a reversed relation with each other. In other words, the absorbed
energy value varies inversely with SAE. Thus, if the value of SAE or the weight of the energy absorber
is significant for the designer, the absorbed energy would become lower and vice versa. Also, Mirzaei
et al. (2011) achieved a similar solution for the optimization of a single tube, so the conclusion may be
drawn rationally that the Pareto optimal results for both single-tube energy absorption and bi-tubular
energy absorption are the same. However, the values of both the absorbed energy and the SAE for
bi-tubular absorption are more than those values for single tubes. These results are listed in Table 8.
Consider that the Pareto front method distributes a wide range of optimal points and that each point
is a possible optimal solution with a unique set of design variables. The points whose energy absorp-
tion is high are suitable for utilization in conditions in which the amount of energy absorption is
high. In contrast, the points with high SAE values are appropriate for minimizing the weight. The
middle points tend to favour the two factors simultaneously. There are two gaps between the results
in Figure 10. As may be observed in Table 8, these gaps are between Nos 4, 12 and 30, 32. In Nos 4
and 12, the diameter of small tube changes and other parameters are nearly fixed. Also, the energy
absorption is similar in these two cases while the weight changes extremely, so the SEA differences
are high. Hence, it is possible to increase SAE by keeping energy absorption constant and reducing
weight. In Nos 30 and 32, the length of the small tube is changed, which causes reduced weight and
energy absorption, so they have similar SAE and different energy absorption. These phenomena hap-
pen because changing the buckling mode has a nonlinear effect on the energy absorption of bi-tubular
tubes. The SAE of energy absorption could be improved more in the future by considering this idea.
To gain more insight into the optimization, the normalized design parameter values can be plot-
ted versus SAE and absorbed energy. Since the length of small tubes keeps approximately constant at
12 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

Table 8. Optimization results (Pareto solutions).

No. Ds (mm) Db − Ds (mm) Ls (mm) SAE (kJ kg−1 ) Absorbed energy (kJ)
1 70.33 15.99 81.42 18.81 7.17
2 70.35 15.50 70.55 19.35 7.10
3 116.25 8.72 109.84 11.75 8.74
4 73.82 15.80 109.89 17.82 7.91
5 93.81 10.94 109.86 14.30 8.43
6 94.90 10.54 109.85 14.13 8.45
7 106.65 8.77 109.66 12.61 8.57
8 70.22 15.44 68.32 19.53 7.09
9 81.97 15.46 109.75 16.22 8.08
10 83.97 14.16 109.87 15.85 8.17
11 97.66 10.21 109.85 13.75 8.47
12 79.22 15.65 109.85 16.57 7.95
13 83.19 15.23 109.74 16.05 8.14
14 91.06 11.83 109.78 14.73 8.38
15 108.11 8.71 109.62 12.45 8.59
16 96.20 10.44 109.83 13.95 8.46
17 70.32 15.82 77.56 19.01 7.14
18 102.98 8.94 109.87 13.02 8.54
19 98.68 10.20 109.8 13.61 8.49
20 70.19 14.92 56.23 20.14 6.99
21 70.25 15.63 72.79 19.28 7.12
22 80.65 15.27 109.87 16.36 8.02
23 80.91 15.39 109.74 16.35 8.04
24 87.06 13.14 109.87 15.36 8.28
25 99.37 9.69 109.82 13.50 8.50
26 111.96 8.69 109.78 12.09 8.65
27 91.99 11.51 109.83 14.59 8.40
28 70.33 15.90 79.29 18.92 7.15
29 70.22 15.10 59.82 19.95 7.02
30 70.33 15.99 81.42 18.81 7.17
31 81.97 15.46 109.75 16.22 8.08
32 72.68 15.98 109.75 18.06 7.86

110 mm for all the optimum solutions, it is not displayed in the graphs. This indicates that the longer
small tubes gain an optimum solution for the maximum absorbed energy and SAE in bi-tubular cylin-
ders’ energy absorption. Figures 11 and 12 show the variation of the design parameters versus SAE
and absorbed energy, respectively.
These graphs illustrate the effects of the diameter of big tubes (Db ) and the difference between the
diameters of the big and the small tubes (Db − Ds ) on SAE and absorbed energy. Figure 11 shows that
SAE decreases when the diameter of the big tube increases or the difference between the diameters
of the big and the small tube decreases and vice versa. Considering Figure 12, it is obvious that when
the diameter of the big tube increases, and the difference between the diameter of the big and small
tubes decreases, absorbed energy grows and vice versa. Thus, the diameter of the big tube and the
difference between the diameters of the big and the small tubes have an inverse relationship in Pareto
optimal solutions.
FEM results are used to verify the obtained optimal solutions of the artificial neural network in
the optimization procedure. In this regard, three points have been assessed to compare existing errors
between optimal results and FEM. Table 9 demonstrates that the optimal solution has significant
agreement with the FEM solution. Since the FEM is verified in Section 3 with experimental results
(Mirzaei et al. 2011), optimal solutions achieved by combining GAs and artificial neural networks are
reliable.
Additionally, the force–displacement curves of optimization points 3 and 20 (maximum energy
absorption and SAE) are compared in Figure 13. As shown, the main interaction between the inner
and outer tubes is between 40 and 80 mm for the optimum number 3 and between 85 and 120 mm
for the optimum number 20. It is found that the difference in geometry parameters changes buckling
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 13

Figure 11. Variation of the design variable (Db , Db − Ds ) against the SAE on the Pareto front.

Figure 12. Variation of the design variable (Db , Db − Ds ) against the absorbed energy on the Pareto front.

Table 9. Comparison between the optimum results and the FEM results.
Optimized solution FEM
Db Db − Ds Ls SAE Absorbed SAE Absorbed Relative
No. (mm) (mm) (mm) (kJ kg−1 ) energy (kJ) (kJ kg−1 ) energy (kJ) error (%)
3 116 9 109 11.75 8.75 11.54 8.53 2
29 70 15 59 19.95 7.02 19.15 6.69 4
32 72 16 109 18.06 7.80 18.23 7.83 1

mode shapes, which has significant effects on the SAE and energy absorption. Note that the maximum
force in optimum point 3 is a little above 120 kN, which is caused by error in the neural network
estimation function.
14 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

Figure 13. The curves of force versus displacement for optimum points 3 and 20.

140
Axisymmetric arrangement
Eccentric arrangement

120

100
Force (kN)

80

60

40

20

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Displacement (mm)

Figure 14. The curves of force versus displacement for axisymmetric and eccentric tubes.

7. Eccentric arrangement of tubes

In this section, the small tube is not symmetrically inserted in the big tube and the effects of this
change on crashworthiness parameters including SAE, absorbed energy and PCF is investigated. For
this purpose, two simulations are performed in which Db = 82 mm, Db − Ds = 15 mm and Ls =
109 mm. In the first simulation, the tubes are axisymmetric, while in the second, the distance between
the centres of the tubes is 6 mm. The results of the two simulations are listed in Table 10, and Figure 14
shows the force–displacement curves of axisymmetric and eccentric tubes.
 ENGINEERING OPTIMIZATION 15

Table 10. Comparison of results from axisymmetric tubes with those

from eccentric tubes.
Condition PCF (kN) SAE (kJ kg−1 ) Absorbed energy (kJ)
Axisymmetric 120 17.1 8.5
Eccentric 100 14.0 7.0

Figure 15. Buckling shapes of tubes. (a) Big tube in eccentric configuration (b) Big tube in axisymmetric configuration (c) Small
tube in eccentric configuration and (d) Small tube in axisymmetric configuration.

Figure 16. Buckling formulation of bi-tubular cylinders. (a) Axisymmetric (b) Eccentric.
16 A. AHMADI DASTJERDI ET AL.

It is found that the PCF, SAE and the absorbed energy are reduced by approximately 17% in the
eccentric arrangement. This is due to the fact that the shapes of buckling modes are different in
these two models. Figure 15 shows the shape of the buckling modes of both small and big tubes in
both axisymmetric and eccentric tubes. As discussed previously, the shape of the buckling mode has
the main effect on the crashworthiness parameters. When the bi-tubular cylinders have an eccentric
arrangement, the location of the centre of the moment of inertia is changed while the impact load acts
on the centre of the upper wall. Therefore, as shown in Figure 16, there are both moment and force in
the impact load in the eccentric mode. According to Euler theory (Beer, Johnston, and DeWolf 2002),
the critical buckling forces of schemes (a) and (b) (Figure 16) are different and this can be accounted
for by a reduction in the peak force, SAE and energy absorption.

8. Conclusion
This article presents the crashworthiness design and optimization of bi-thin walled cylindrical
tubes under axial impact loading. The design problem is defined as an optimization process with
three design variables and two objective functions. At first, a numerical simulation is performed
by ABAQUS/Explicit software and is verified by comparing with experimental results in Mirzaei et
al. (2011). Then, it is found that the bi-tubular case can increase the SAE and energy absorption.
Afterwards, a finite number of simulations are performed to settle the complex relation between the
parameters and response functions by using a Back-Propagation Neural Network (BPNN). As the
BPNN is validated by the test set, a multi-objective genetic algorithm is applied to find the optimal
solutions and a set of Pareto optimal solution is reported. Considering the Pareto optimal solution
results, it can be concluded that the SAE and absorbed energy have an inverse relation with each other.
Also, SAE, absorbed energy and maximum force in the bi-thin walled cylindrical tube are higher than
for single-tube energy absorption. It is observed that the length of small tubes is the maximum value
of its domain in all Pareto optimal solutions. Finally, it is found that the crashworthiness parameters
such as PCF, SAE and absorbed energy in the axisymmetric arrangement of tubes are more than in
the case of eccentric tubes. All in all, it can be inferred that the crashworthiness behaviour is sensi-
tively dependent on the buckling shapes of tubes. This article uses this advantage to improve the SAE
by changing the buckling modes of bi-tubular cylinders.

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

Funding
The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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