Geometric effects on the crashworthiness of composite Kresling origami tubes

Abstract

Composite Kresling origami tubes consisting of multiple cells exhibit stable cascading collapse behavior under compression and this collapse behavior can be tailored by manipulating various geometric parameters. Previous research has demonstrated that this collapse mechanism can result in more progressive crushing behavior compared with composite straight-walled tubes. However, the energy absorption behavior of the Kresling origami tubes has not been sufficiently studied. In this study, we investigate the effects of the Kresling unit cell height and twist angle on crashworthiness performance with an experimentally validated numerical model. We also vary the number of unit cells in a tube to trigger unique collapse modes. We found that the twist angle of Kresling origami unit cells and the number of unit cells in a tube all significantly affected the energy absorption of the tubes. We confirmed that composite Kresling origami tubes can potentially outperform conventional straight-walled cylinders if the proper tuning of these parameters is achieved.