Axial-crushing performance of aluminum foam-filled 6082-T6 aluminum alloy circular tube

Abstract:

The composite components composed of thin-walled metal tubes and foam materials have advantageous energy dissipation capability. In this study, aluminum foam-filled 6082-T6 aluminum alloy circular tubes were proposed as energy absorption composite components in building structures. Twenty groups of empty aluminum tubes and aluminum foam-filled composite tubes with different dimensions were tested under axial static compressive load to investigate the deformation behavior, failure mechanism, and energy absorption capacity of aluminum foam-filled 6082-T6 aluminum alloy circular tubes. Experiment results show that the specimens exhibited three failure modes under axial compression, including splitting failure, symmetry folding and splitting failure, folding and splitting and irregular deformation failure. Filling aluminum foam could effectively improve the deformation capacity of the components, prevent irregular deformation failure, and enhance their energy absorption capacity. Finite element (FE) model was established based on LS-DYNA, and parametric study was carried out. It shows that the peak crush load and energy absorption capacity of the tubes increased with the increase in the thickness and diameter of the tubes. Moreover, instability of the tubes was observed from the numerical results when the ratio of height to diameter exceeded a certain value, while filling aluminum foam could increase the critical height to diameter ratio of the components.