Experimental and numerical determination of tube collision energy absorbers characteristics

Development of collision energy absorbers is one of the necessary measures for passive safety of passenger coaches. The purpose of passive safety is to minimize the collision consequences for passengers. The collision absorber developed in this work consisted of a low carbon seamless steel tube and conical bush fabricated from quench and tempered carbon steel. During collision, the seamless tube is compressed into a bush with a reduced diameter. In this paper, the analysis of results is obtained by numerical simulations and dynamic investigation of tube absorbers of kinetic collision energy of passenger coaches. The research focuses on correlations between numerical and dynamic test results. Using the characteristic parameters obtained by the dynamic tests and numerical simulations, values for key numerical parameters have been defined, which can be used for further investigations of tube shrinking absorber. Numerical simulations should be used in the developing phase of a prototype, while for the final verification it is necessary to do dynamic (impact) test.