Automotive Science and Engineering

In this paper, numerical simulation of FRP composite cylinder tubes progressive crushing processes is conducted using LS-Dyna. Details on the numerical modeling strategy are given and discussed. It is found that triggers introduced in the numerical simulation can effectively model the bevel trigger at the end of the tubular specimens. It is also found that two-layer finite element model based on the TsaiWu failure criteria is effective in representing the crushing failure mode of the tubular composite specimens and energy absorption characteristics. Employing GEvoM software, two meta-models are then obtained for modeling of both the absorbed energy (E) and the peak crushing force (Fmax) with respect to geometrical design variables using input output data obtained from the finite element modeling. Comparison between obtained meta-models and numerical results in both of training and testing sets show good approximation by using obtained polynomial models.