Crushing and energy absorption properties of additively manufactured concave thin-walled tubes

Developing an innovative protective structure with excellent energy absorption performance is a continuous research effort. The emerging additive manufacturing techniques allow fabricating structures complex geometrical shapes which have the potential to yield unprecedented properties. Accordingly, in this paper, crush and behaviour of new designs, namely Concave Tubes (CTs) featuring inwardly curved sidewalls, assessed experimentally compared that Standard tubes (STs) straight sidewalls. different configurations, including concave circular (CC), square (CS), standard (SC), (SS), are fabricated using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process from AlSi10Mg aluminium powder then crushed axially under quasi-static loading. It was found fractured developed splitting deformation mode, instead progressive buckling, during axial crushing resulting relatively low performance. experimental results revealed superior for CTs over STs. A Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) technique known as Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) used identify best design. COPRAS show CC design absorbing tube outperforming all other configurations presented paper.