Author(s)

M. R. Said, R. Ahmad & A. Alias

Abstract

Elastic-perfectly plastic material is assumed in the model using the non-linear facilities of the finite element code ABAQUS in hexagonal tube structures. A four-noded quadrilateral (S4R) of shell elements is used in the analysis. The load-displacement curves are examined and compared with experiment. It has been found both experimentally and throughout the finite element method that the form of the two load-displacement curves are approximately the same throughout the compression. The FE mean load is in close agreement with experiment. However, the FE plastic fold length is found to have overestimated the experimental result by 10%. The strain history is also examined and it is found that the form of the predicted curves are in agreement with the experiments at locations away from the end. Keywords: finite element analysis, hexagonal tube, axial compression, quasi-static. 1 Introduction Energy absorption systems made of thin-walled structures have been given great attention by researchers in the past, particularly over the last few decades. The initiation of buckling of axially compressed cylindrical tubes has been a subject of intense investigation by many famous researchers. Mallock [1] was the first to report experiments on the crushing of thin circular tubes, observing progressive axisymmetric folding in the thicker tubes and non-axisymmetical folding in the thinner ones. Alexander [2] presented the first of the analyses for the prediction

Keywords

finite element analysis, hexagonal tube, axial compression, quasi-static.