Multi-Objective Energy Absorption Capability Optimization of Braided Composite Tubes with Improved Trigger

With the increased use of composite materials in aircraft main load-bearing structures, it is of great significance to study the failure modes and energy absorption characteristics of the structures made up of composite materials. This paper used finite element method (FEM) and investigated the performances of braided composite tubes with semi-circular cavity external trigger during crashing. The generated data were used to modify the dynamic Kriging model. Based on the surrogate model, the artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm was used to optimize the cavity radius, tube diameter and tube thickness, so as to minimize the peak load and maximize the specific energy absorption (SEA). The results showed that the Kriging model had high accuracy and efficiency in simulating the stress and deformation. The proposed model determined the optimized parameters using the ABC model, one of which improved the SEA by 39.6 % and reduced the peak load by 38.6 %, thereby improving the structural properties of braided composite materials.