Crashworthiness analysis and multi‐objective optimization of Al/CFRP tubes with induced holes

Abstract Reasonable design of induced holes on thin‐walled structure is beneficial to enhance the crashworthy performance of the structure. In order to improve the crashworthiness of Al/carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer (CFRP) tube, the effect of induced holes on the Al/CFRP thin‐walled structure was studied, and the Al/CFRP tube configuration with better overall crashworthiness was obtained by multi‐objective optimization design method. First, the quasi‐static axial compression tests were carried out on the intact Al/CFRP tube and the Al/CFRP tube with induced holes, and a numerical model validated by the experiment was established. Second, the parameters of the induced hole were studied numerically to explore the influence of the induced holes on the crashworthiness of the Al/CFRP tube. It was found that the diameter and number of the induced hole had a great influence on the crashworthiness and energy absorption (EA) capacity. Finally, the multi‐objective optimization was performed to optimize the parameters of the induced holes by integrating the Kriging model technique and the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA‐II). Compared the optimal design with the intact Al/CFRP tube, the first peak load is reduced by 24.32% and the specific EA is slightly improved by 0.68%.