An integrated bionic thin-walled structure inspired by bamboo and palinuridae with enhanced crashworthiness

Natural biological structures provide valuable inspiration for designing thin-walled tubes with superior crashworthiness. In this study, a novel type of integrated bionic thin-walled tubes (IBTs) is conceived by mimicking the features of both the bamboo vascular bundles and the corrugated profile of palinuridae tails. To investigate the crashworthiness of IBTs (IBT-C and IBT-S), validated finite element model is employed to simulate the axial impact compression behaviors, and the crashworthiness is compared with three other thin-walled tubes. The results indicate that the IBTs demonstrate excellent comprehensive crashworthiness (e.g., the specific energy absorption (SEA), and initial peak force (IPF)). Additionally, the influences of geometric parameters representing the key features of biomimetic vascular bundles and corrugations on the crashworthiness of IBT-C are investigated. Finally, multi-objective optimization is performed to maximize SEA, and minimize IPF and the peak crush force (PCF) of IBT-C through non-dominated sequential genetic algorithm II. The present work may provide certain supports for future design of more advanced integrated bionic structures.