In this tutorial, we study the crushing behavior of foam-filled aluminium tubes using Abaqus. Thin-walled metallic tubes are commonly used as energy absorbers due to their progressive buckling under axial compression and their lightweight structure.
Previous research shows that circular tubes can collapse in different modes:
Axisymmetric mode (concertina or ring mode)
Non-axisymmetric mode (diamond mode)
Mixed mode
The crushing mode depends mainly on the tube’s geometry. Energy is absorbed through progressive buckling during deformation.
This simulation uses axisymmetric modeling to represent the 3D behavior of aluminium and foam. The aluminium is defined with elastic-plastic material properties, while the foam uses an elastic and crushable foam model with hardening.
A dynamic explicit procedure is applied, which is suitable for this type of analysis. Surface-to-surface contact is defined between all parts, and self-contact is included for both aluminium and foam. Displacement is applied to the upper rigid plate to initiate crushing.
A fine mesh is especially important for the aluminium tube to ensure accurate results. After running the simulation, significant deformation of the aluminium is observed. All results, including deformation patterns and energy absorption, are available for review.
Figures of the assembled model and simulation results are shown below.
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