Progressive Failure and Energy Absorption of Aluminum Extrusion Damage

Aluminim Tubular structures are of interest as viable energy absorbing components in vehicular front rail structures to improve crashworthiness. Desirable tools in designing such structures are models capable of simulating damage growth in Aluminim materials. This paper studied the deformation and damage behaviors of aluminum-alloy under crushing loadings. The numerical analysis is carried out by Abaqus software. Subsequently, the collapse behavior of aluminim extrusion damage was experimentally characterized. Finally in order to find more efficient and lighter crush absorber and achieving minimum peak crushing force, response surface methodology (RSM) has been applied for optimizing the square aluminim extrusion tube.Key words: Damage; RSM; Crashworthiness; FE