The energy absorption characteristics of tapered honeycomb sandwich cylindrical columns under axial crushing loads

The energy absorption characteristics of honeycomb sandwich cylindrical columns under axial crushing process depend greatly on the amount of material which participates in the plastic deformation. The interaction effects between the honeycomb core and the column skins greatly improve the energy absorption efficiency, which in turns depend on the shape of honeycomb core. Therefore, in this paper, the energy absorption characteristics of tapered honeycomb sandwich cylindrical columns with square, triangle, kagome and diamond cores under axial crushing loads are investigated by nonlinear finite element analysis. In this paper energy absorption, crushing force and interaction effect between skin and core for 4 models are investigated. Also energy absorption efficiency for tapered tube and cylindrical tube with similar core is investigated and the results are compared. In order to reduce the computational cost of crush simulations, finite element method is employed to formulate specific energy absorption and peak crushing force.