Energy-absorption behavior of a metallic double-sine-wave beam under axial crushing

Energy-absorbing behavior of a metallic double-sine-wave beam under axial crushing is studied in this paper. The aims of the study are to improve the energy-absorbing capability of traditional corrugated beams with sine-wave at single direction and reduce the initial peak force by forcing the beam plasticly deformed at the predetermined intervals along the axial direction. The theoretical approach based on a rigid, perfectly plastic model is adopted to predict the mean crushing force under axial crush loading. Besides, the numerical analysis of energy-absorption behavior of aluminium double-sine-wave beams is conducted by using nonlinear finite element code MSC.DYTRAN. The numerical results are compared well with theoretical predictions and show that although the crushing mean force slightly decreases, the double-sine-wave beam produces better uniform load displacement relationship and lower initial peak force.