Axial Compression Study of Crash Boxes with Various Honeycomb Structures

In recent times, automotive manufacturing companies are focusing on developing components that is capable of increasing safety features associated with lightweight materials such as using aluminium. One such innovation is providing the vehicle with crash box, which is generally located at the front bumper. The function of the crash box is to safeguard the passenger by absorbing the kinetic energy of collision and self-deformation. In this paper, the authors presented a study of the compressive test applied on crash boxes with different types of honeycomb sandwich circular columns using 3D virtual modelling and finite element (FE) simulation with the help of Solidworks and Ansys Workbench respectively. This sandwich structure comprises two circular aluminium tubes filled with core shaped as a large-cell honeycomb lattice. Here, the crash boxes with three different honeycomb sandwich circular columns i.e., hexagonal, triangular, and semi-circular arrangement, were investigated and the energy absorption capabilities of these columns were studied. FE simulations were used to evaluate maximum stress that a material can sustain over a period under a load, material deformation, geometric changes, and load-displacement results using a constant material property of that of aluminium alloy, and the results of the three different arrangements were compared and it is known that the crash box with semi-circular arrangement has high energy absorbing capacity. © 2022. MechAero Foundation for Technical Research & Education Excellence.