Author(s)

M. R. Said, A. Rivai & M. R. Alkahari

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on the load-displacement curve and strain histories of a single hexagonal tube under quasi-static axial compression. The result is compared with computer simulation. The strain gauges are glued on to the outer faces, and both axial and circumferential strains are measured at a sampling rate of 40 readings every one second. The measured strains are examined both as time histories and as deformation fields. The response of hexagonal tube subjected to axial loading is observed through experiments. The FEA strain-displacement curve agrees well with the experiment if the gauges are away from the top of specimen. Keywords: energy absorption, hexagonal tubes, triggering, and quasi-static. 1 Introduction Efforts have been made to improve the capability of energy absorption of sheet metal tubes particularly of empty, wood-filled and foam-filled rectangular tubes under static and dynamic crushing. Reid and Reddy [1], Reid et al. [2] and Reddy and Al-Hassani [3] have shown that filling the tubes with foam or wood increases the energy absorbed by inducing a larger overall plastic deformation of the shell wall. Said [4] presented experimental measurement of elastic half wavelength and plastic fold length during the crushing of rectangular tubes. It is noted that the plastic fold length depends on the elastic wavelength, which can also be found from the deformation pattern. Abramowicz and Wierzbicki [5] developed the theory for predicting crush behaviour for multicorner columns with an arbitrary corner angle. This was applied to find the crushing strength of

Keywords

energy absorption, hexagonal tubes, triggering, and quasi-static.