Effect of plate-lattice structural material filling on crashworthiness performance of square tube

•Novel multilayer tube constructions with plate-lattice and square tube are proposed;•The crashworthiness performance of multilayer tube constructions is enhanced;•The SEA of both of plate-lattice and square tube in ST-PL is significantly increased. The aim of this study was to investigate the crashworthiness performance of novel plate-lattice structural material-filled multilayer square tube (PL-ST), which are fabricated 3D printing. It was indicated that the peak strength, energy absorption of PL-STs are higher than these of plate-lattice structural material (PL) and square tube (ST). Especially, PL-ST increases the specific strength by 103–118% and 36–778%, relative to ST and PL, respectively. The energy absorption per unit mass EM and per unit volume EV by 208–374% and 405–1193%, relative to ST, respectively, whilst by 40.2–576% and 193–1082%, relative to PL, respectively. Furthermore, the reinforcement mechanism is that the instability of PL and STs are limited or delayed by mutual enhancement between constituents, resulting in elevating the crashworthiness performance and the specific energy absorption of PL-STs.