Experimental Analysis of Crashworthiness Behavior of Energy Absorber Tubes Under 3D Oblique Load

Actual applications of the energy absorbers showed that actual loads are not applied in the form of pure axial compression, pure bending or pure torsion. In reality, an energy absorber component may be subjected to combined loading of compression, bending and torsion. A number of previous articles have investigated the behavior of energy absorbers under oblique loading. In such cases, the oblique load was considered as 2D load determined with one angle parameter to the profile of specimen. However, in reality, it is possible that the energy absorber component be under a 3D oblique load condition with three spatial components determined by two angle parameter in 3D space. In present paper, crashworthiness behavior of thin walled tubes is experimentally analyzed under 3D oblique load. To perform this job, a fixture was designed and installed on the universal tensile and compression testing machine. All tests were conducted in quasi-static form and finally a diagram of force and displacement and crushing modes were extracted and the effect of oblique load aspects on energy absorbing characteristics was investigated.