Innovative solution for strength enhancement of metallic like-composite tubular structures axially crushed used as energy dissipating devices

Abstract This work presents the milestones of the underlying of a patented work [1] (Abdul-Latif, 2014) which aims to enhance the plastic buckling resistance of thin-walled right-circular cylindrical mild steel tubes deformed axially under the quasi-static compressive load. The proposed concept can be described by producing a metal like-composite where a hard phase incorporates in these tubes made by case-hardening of 15% of tubes outer surface with different geometrical shapes and a constant depth along the tubes thickness. To study the effect of case-hardening configurations, several forms were designed, made and tested. They were four ring forms (with 2, 3, 4 and 5 rings), two vertical strip forms (2 and 3 strips) and, six helical strip forms with three tilt angles of 30°, 45° and 60° (2H30, 3H30, 2H45, 3H45, 2H60 and 3H60). The total energy absorption of conventional tubes could be increased up to 46%. The effects of the case-hardened zone, quasi-static strain rate and the crush force efficiency were investigated. Moreover, the deformation modes of these case-hardened tubes were analyzed. The effect of the case-hardened forms could be classified into three categories by the gain percentage (low, intermediate and high gains). Especially in the high gain category, the material behavior seems to be directed by complicated local strain induced by the metal like-composite tube, where a triaxial strain state was encouraged particularly within the tube wall of 3H30. For this reason, the collapse load became the function of case-hardened forms.