Engineering

Biology

Materials science

Hoof

Tube (container)

Theoretical computer science

Vertex (graph theory)

Computer science

Paleontology

Mechanical engineering

Finite element method

Graph

Mathematics

Combinatorics

Structural engineering

Crashworthiness

International Journal of Mechanical Sciences

Thin-walled metal tubes are the most widely used energy-absorption structures in various industries. Bionics can help engineers to design novel tubular structures to achieve outstanding crashworthiness performance. Inspired by the unique microstructure of a horse-hoof-wall and the concept of vertex-based hierarchy, a novel bio-inspired corrugated tube and its derivative structures with varying vertex configurations were proposed in this paper. Quasi-static compression test and finite element simulation were employed to investigate the mechanical behaviors of these bio-inspired tubes. The results showed that these bio-inspired tubes exhibit good crashworthiness performance, especially in terms of their weight force efficiencies. Moreover, by applying a complex proportional assessment method, the tube with regular octagon vertex configuration was selected as the optimum one among these bio-inspired tubes. A theoretical model was developed to predict the mean crushing force of the proposed tubes. In conclusion, the horse-hoof-wall inspired tubes exhibit a novel perspective on providing superior mechanical properties and pave a way of applications of bio-inspired engineering structures.

Mechanical performance of bio-inspired corrugated tubes with varying vertex configurations