Numerical Analysis of Windowed Origami-Ending Crash Tubes

Crash tubes are structural components that reduce damage to passengers and cargo in a low-speed collision. They are placed at the front of the vehicle and designed to dissipate the kinetic energy and reduce impact force during a crash. This paper presents a family of novel Origami-Ending crash Tubes (OETs) with circular, square and rectangular windows. Validation, modelling and numerical simulations are performed using ABAQUS EXPLICIT. Dynamically loading the crash tubes showed that most of the tubes collapsed under mixed-mode consisting of both symmetric and extensional modes. Theoretically, employing origami at the ends reduces the initial impact forces and having windows increases the specific energy absorbed. We demonstrated that for OETs, a considerable reduction in initial peak force is observed. Also, an increase in Specific Energy Absorbed (SEA) is noticed compared to the conventional crash box. Other comparative studies were performed based on crashworthiness parameters like mean force, specific energy absorbed and initial peak force. Substantial gains over the crashworthiness of the structure make OETs worthy for engineering applications.