Study of Energy Dissipation in Accordion Thin-Walled Tubes under Axial Cyclic Loads

Energy absorber systems like metallic dampers for controlling the structural vibrations due to earthquake have witnessed considerable development in the past few decades. Also there are some studies on the energy absorption of thin-walled tubes due to impact load. Thin-walled tubes have a large deformation capacity and are suitable energy absorbers in the structure during an earthquake provided that a suitable inelastic buckling mode obtains. This paper deals with the study of energy dissipation in accordion thin-walled tubes and their behavior due to axial cyclic loads. For this purpose, experimental and analytical studies have been performed. Experimental studies were conducted on specimens available in the market by dynamic tension and compression actuator. Analytical studies are based on finite element methods and nonlinear inelastic dynamic analysis. These studies are focused on the effects of mechanical and geometrical parameters of these tubes like shape, thickness, diameter, length and material type of tube on the amount of energy dissipation and axial stiffness. The results show that accordion thin-walled tubes exhibit satisfactory energy absorption behavior and that proper selection of the parameters yields the optimum design of this metallic damper.