Numerical investigation of energy absorption behaviors of variable thickness tubes

In this study; the energy absorption behaviors of variable thickness tube (VTT) made of aluminum alloy AA6063 which has different thickness (0.5 mm - 4 mm) layers in axial direction and different taper angles (0 degrees, 5 degrees and 10 degrees) were numerically investigated. As a result of analysis deformations pattern, force-displacement and energy-time graphs of the tubes were obtained. Optimum layer thicknesses which provide the lowest peak force and the highest specific energy absorbing (SEA) values for different taper angles, were determined by the optimization method which includes Feedforward Artificial Neural Networks (FNN) technique. The layer thicknesses obtained as a result of optimization showed that the energy absorption behavior of the VTT was improved.