Experimental and computer simulation of circular crash box under axial crushing

This study investigates the deformation pattern and absorbed energy in a circular crash box under axial crushing. The crash box model used circular cross section with AA6063 Aluminum Alloy material. Using a Universal Testing Machine and reversing the loading direction for a compression test, experimental testing was performed. ANSYS Workbench software is chosen and used for simulation step, followed by geometry model is assumed as rigid material which cannot be deformed. Crash box material assuming as bilinear isotropic hardening. Bilinear isotropic hardening model is commonly used in numerical simulation as plastic-elastic properties represented by two linear lines. Also, the bottom of the crash box is defined as fixed support. Referring to experimental and simulation results, its shows that the deformation pattern in both tests has a uniform deformation pattern, namely the concertina mode. The amount of energy absorption in the computer simulation is 3746.5 kJ and the experimental is 4035 kJ. Both tests also produced identical results with error percentages under 10% for the Energy Absorption (EA), Specific Energy Absorption (SEA), Mean Crushing Force (Pmean), Peak Crushing Force (PCF), and Crushing Force Efficiency (CFE) values.