Numerical Modelling of Tube Crush with Experimental Comparison

In the automotive crash event, the bending and folding of the metal structural members is the method whereby impact energy is absorbed. Lately, the development of supercomputers, such as the CRAY-XMP/24, and non-linear finite element codes, such as DYNA-3D, have made it possible to model this bending and folding in detail. In order to verify these capabilities, an example problem of the axial crush of a rectangular steel tube is analyzed experimentally and numerically. Quasistatic conditions are chosen over dynamic conditions because, quasistatic experiments are more repeatable than are dynamic experiments and quasistatic modelling results are less ambiguous to interpret than are dynamic test results. This paper describes, the experimental program and results, and the numerical models and the results from these models when analyzed with DYNA-3D. The predicted peak force, mean force level and the energy absorbed are compared against an average of the experimental data. Finally, some postprocessing of this analysis data, to indicate strain and internal energy distributions, is provided.