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Crashworthiness design of horsetail-bionic thin-walled structures under axial dynamic loading

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Abstract

Bio-inspired engineering design has drawn increased attention in recent years for the excellent structural and mechanical properties of the biological systems. In this study, the horsetail-bionic thin-walled structures (HBTSs) were investigated for their crashworthiness under axial dynamic loading. Six HBTSs with different cross section configurations (i.e., number of cells) were evaluated using nonlinear finite element (FE) simulations. To obtain the optimal design of the HBTSs, an ensemble metamodel-based multi-objective optimization method was employed to maximize the specific energy absorption while minimizing maximum impact force of the HBTSs. Using the ensemble metamodeling, FE simulations and the NSGA-II algorithm, the Pareto optimum designs of all six HBTSs were obtained and the HBTS with 16 cells were found to have the best crashworthiness. An optimum design of the HBTS with 16 cells was verified using FE simulation and found to have good agreement with simulation results.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported jointly by the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (No. 11302075), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 11225212), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Nos. 20120161120009 and 20120161130001), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China (No. 14JJ3061), and the Young Teacher Development Plan of Hunan University of China. The authors also would like to thank the support from the Joint Center for Intelligent New Energy Vehicle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Youye Xiao, Hanfeng Yin & Guilin Wen

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, 28223, USA

    Hanfeng Yin & Hongbing Fang

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  1. Youye Xiao
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  2. Hanfeng Yin
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  3. Hongbing Fang
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  4. Guilin Wen
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Correspondence to Hanfeng Yin.

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Xiao, Y., Yin, H., Fang, H. et al. Crashworthiness design of horsetail-bionic thin-walled structures under axial dynamic loading. Int J Mech Mater Des 12, 563–576 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10999-016-9341-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10999-016-9341-6

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