A Novel Bio-Inspired Hierarchical Corrugated Tube To Enhance Crashworthiness Performance

Bio-inspired multi-cell, multi-corner structures have been widely used to enhance the energy absorption capability of thin-walled structures due to outstanding energy dissipation and stable collapse. However, with the increase in loading and safety in energy-absorbing devices, further improvement of the crashworthiness performance of these structures is needed. Therefore, a novel type of bio-inspired hierarchical corrugated tubes (BHCTs) was proposed in this study, inspired by hierarchical structure in the impact region of the dactyl clubs from an Odontodactylus scyllarus– Peacock mantis shrimp. A mathematic sinewave equation was established to control the corrugated patterns in the cross-section, and the crash performance under a quasi-static axial load complies with ASTM D695 standard of different hierarchical configurations was designed and analyzed using finite element analysis in ABAQUS/Explicit environment. The effect of geometrical parameters was also investigated. Entropy-based Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was employed to identify the optimal structure for the best energy absorption capacity. Finally, the optimal structure was fabricated using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) material through the Fused Deposition Modeling technique in 3D printing and tested experimentally. The findings showed that the deviation between numerical and experimental analysis was acceptable, implying the numerical analysis was reliable. The crashworthiness performance of the BHCTs was significantly superior to that of the conventional multi-cell square tube. In conclusion, the result of this study provides a reference framework for designing and investigating bio-inspired hierarchical corrugated tubes for energy-absorbing applications. The novel structure was proposed for energy-absorbing, impact-resistant devices.