The study on the buckling instability of tube type crash energy absorber

튜브형 충돌에너지흡수부재의 좌굴불안전성에 대한 연구

There are normally two types of the energy absorbers used in the crashworthiness of trains. The first is a structure type, which mainly used in not only the primary structures of the train but also the crash energy absorbers at the accident. The second is a module type, which just absorbs the crash energy independent of the primary structures and attached to the structures of the train. The expansion and inversion tube are widely used as the module type crash energy absorbers, especially in the train. The tubes should not be buckled under the load acting on the end of the tube in longitudinal direction during absorbing the crash energy. The buckling stability of the tubes is affected by the boundary conditions, thickness and length of tube. In this study, the effects of the length and thickness of the tubes on the buckling load are studied by using the ABAQUS, a commercial finite element analysis program, and then presents the guideline to design the tube. The analysis processes to compute the buckling load consist of a linear buckling analysis and a nonlinear post-buckling analysis. The buckling modes are evaluated by the linear buckling analysis, as using these modes, the buckling loads are computed by the nonlinear post-buckling analysis.