Deformation and Energy Absorption Properties of Porous Metal-Concrete Interpenetrating Phase Composites Filled Thin-Walled Tubes

Abstract

A filled thin-walled tube is an excellent energy absorption device, and its performance is closely related to the filled core material. In this paper, a porous metal-high performance concrete interpenetrating phase composites (PMCIPC) filling core material is proposed, which takes porous nickel as the matrix and high-performance concrete as the reinforcing element, trying to improve the energy absorption of thin-walled tube. Axial quasi-static compression tests were carried out on empty tube, PMCIPC and filled tube. Based on the experimental results, the effects of wall thickness and aspect ratio on the deformation and energy absorption performance of the filled tube were studied by numerical simulation. The results show that the larger wall thickness increases the energy absorption of the empty tube and the filled tube. The PMCIPC filling further improves the energy absorption capacity, and for the empty tubes with smaller wall thickness, the PMCIPC significantly increases the crushing force efficiency. When the aspect ratio (L/D) is 3.7, the deformation mode of the filled tube is Euler instability, and the performance begins to decrease sharply. Finally, a theoretical model is established to predict the mean crushing force of the filled tubes. The model results are in good agreement with the experimental results. This study provides effective guidance for the design of thin-walled structures with high energy absorption efficiency.