Effect of different triggering on crashworthiness of composite crash box

In recent decades, composite materials have wide range of applications in different industries such as aerospace and automotive due to their high strength to weight ratio. Crash box uses as energy absorber in automobiles between bumper and chassis to prevent damage to passengers. Due to high importance of passenger’s safety, reduction of maximum load of crash box after crash is very important. In general, an ideal crash box has higher specific energy (SEA) and lower maximum load. Therefore, it is very important to have a predictive design tool to be able to simulate the response of thin-walled structures under impact or crash loading. In this study, at first to validate the numerical simulation, a composite crash box is simulated in Abaqus/Explicit, according to available experimental research and extracted force-displacement curve from numerical simulation is compared with available experimental results. After ensuring the solution method, in order to provide an overall strategy to reduce the amount of the maximum load of crash boxes, a composite crash box is modelled and the effects of three different triggers on collapse behavior, especially on the maximum load is evaluated. Results show that presence of trigger in simulated crash boxes has a positive effects on their performance.