Crush behavior of thin-walled prismatic columns under combined bending andcompression

The objective of this paper is to investigate the crushing response of thin -walled prismatic column under combined loading of compression and bending. Square cross-section beams with two different aspect ratios were subject t o a prescribed translational and rotational displacement rate. The nonlinea r explicit FE code PAM-CRASH was used to generate the results. The initial and subsequent failure loci representing interaction between sectional forc e and moment were constructed from the numerical results. Also analytical s olution of the same problem was derived. Shanley nonlinear spring model was used in conjunction with the concept of 'superbeam' element to model the g eneralized plastic hinge. It was shown that the general characteristics of failure locus calculated analytically and numerically are quite similar. Th e present finding can be used to better interpret results of FE calculation s of automotive bodies and to develop simplified crash-oriented design tool s. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.