THIN-WALLED OPEN-SECTION ORIGAMI BEAMS FOR ENERGY ABSORPTION

Thin-walled beams with open-section are extensively employed as energy absorption structures in transportation system, e.g., automobile bumper beams and guardrails. However, during the crushing process of these-traditional open section structures, local section flattening and lateral buckling of the webs always occur, which lead to a reduction on section height, resulting in a significantly smaller bending resistance at the later stage of deformation and the formation of localized plastic hinges. This paper presents a novel design of high performance energy absorption beams using developable origami patterns. The origami beams overcome the problems associated with traditional open-section structures and they give nearly constant bending resistance during crushing process. Numerical analysis shows that the specific energy absorption (energy absorption per unit mass) of the origami beam is at least 20% higher in large deformation than that of the traditional thrie-beam which often used as guardrail. Our research finding demonstrates that utilising origami patterns to open-section beams can effectively alter their collapse modes, attain nearly constant bending resistance and achieve higher specific energy absorption.