Comparative analysis of energy absorption capacity of polygonal tubes, multi-cell tubes and honeycombs by utilizing key performance indicators

With the excellent energy absorption of tubular structures, the axial crushing behavior of tubes of various section shapes has been extensively investigated, while multi-cell tubes and honeycombs structures have been designed to further improve their energy absorption performance. However, there is lack of unified criterion to appropriately evaluate the energy absorption capacity of tubular structures. In this paper, a carefully designed set of key performance indicators (KPIs) is utilized to assess and compare the energy absorbing performance of polygonal tubes, multi-cell tubes and honeycombs. A series of diagrams related to the KPIs with non-dimensional parameters of various tubes are presented to demonstrate the influence of sectional configuration on the performance of polygonal tubes, as well as the effect of the cell number on that of multi-cell tubes and the effect of the cell package on that of honeycombs. The work is valuable to engineering designs and applications, as well as to the further studies of energy absorbers of other configurations. [Display omitted] •A set of key performance indicators (KPIs) is proposed.•Effective stroke has been taken into account when formulating KPIs.•Circular tubes perform best comparing with other polygonal tubes.•Square multi-cell tubes, and hexagonal and square package honeycombs are evaluated.