Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-023-10116-w

Advancement in Design and Failure Analysis of Aluminium

Foam‑filled Honeycomb Crash Absorbers

G. Valente1 · H. Ghasemnejad1 · S. Srimanosaowapak2 · J. W. Watson3

Received: 5 September 2022 / Accepted: 10 February 2023 / Published online: 1 March 2023
© The Author(s) 2023

Abstract
Honeycomb structures are frequently used as energy absorption devices in the automotive
and aerospace industry. Many studies have been conducted to optimise these structures
and improve crashworthiness behaviour. This paper attempts to improve the crashworthi-
ness behaviour of a honeycomb crash box by filling the cells with open-cell aluminium
foams. Experimental tests were conducted to develop the honeycomb and aluminium foam
material model and, also, to validate the finite element model by experimental data. The
finite element model was developed in ABAQUS, and different variables were parameter-
ised to aim a quick implementation. The empty aluminium honeycomb crash box is used
as a term of comparison with the foam-filled ones. Foam-filling the crash box allows the
control of the densification zone for different impact energies using open-cell aluminium
foam, which shows the main novelty of this research. In the end, the optimised structure is
presented concerning the optimum number of foam-filled cells and, also, to the aluminium
foam’s density that best fits this application.

Keywords Aluminium honeycomb · Aluminium foam · Impact · FEM · Optimisation

1 Introduction

Passive safety is one of the main concerns for the automotive industry, meaning that
more than developing faster cars, car manufacturers are investing in safer cars. Therefore,
road safety equipment is also being improved and for this reason, many researchers have

This research was carried in collaboration with the industry partner, Thailand Metal and Materials
Technology Center (MTEC) and Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public Company Ltd. This work was
also sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) through the Engineering X Transforming
Systems through Partnership programme.

* H. Ghasemnejad
[email protected]
1
School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing (SATM), Cranfield University,
Cranfield MK430AL, UK
2
Materials Technology Center (MTEC), National Metaland, 12120 Pathum Thani, Thailand
3
Cranfield Impact Centre (CIC), Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK

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706 Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726

investigated energy absorption capabilities of devices. Aluminium honeycomb structures are

the preferred ones due to their attractive behaviour against impact in the out-of-plane direc-
tion. Also, aluminium foams offer an interesting behaviour during compression and, there-
fore, this paper aims to combine these two attractive structures and perform the optimised
structure against impact loading conditions. The main criterion that evaluates the behav-
iour of an energy-absorbing device is the specific energy absorption. As a result, several
combinations of foam-filled cells can be performed to evaluate which one is the best struc-
ture under the specific energy absorption criterion. Moreover, it is necessary to limit the
maximum forces, and, in this field, the foam-filled structures have a big influence, since the
number of aluminium foams acts as a controlling device for the maximum force. Numerical
optimisation methods are one of the most advanced techniques to find an optimum solution
for a design process. Thus, it is important to reach an accurate and effective optimisation
loop through a local search by using a cost function to meet the defined criterion.
Even though several pieces of research have already been made to model the impact
behaviour of empty honeycomb structures, single foam-filled tubes, and optimisation
loops. There are no significant previous studies that combine all these factors. This study
seeks to develop the optimum aluminium foam-filled honeycomb crash box with the most
representative studies concerning honeycomb structures, single foam-filled tubes, and opti-
misation loops.
Partovi Meran et al. [1] numerically and experimentally studied the influence of dif-
ferent honeycomb design parameters like honeycomb cell’s thickness, side size and cell
expanding angle against out-of-plane impact. The crashworthiness parameters, namely spe-
cific energy absorption (SEA) and crush force efficiency (CFE), depend on the variation of
these parameters. The energy absorption capacity improves with the increase of the cell’s
thickness or, in the opposite direction, with the decrease of the cell size. On the other hand,
the CFE decreases with the cell’s thickness and side size increase.
Abramowicz and Jones, Wierzbicki and Abramowicz, and Hayduk and Wierzbicki [2–4]
studied the deformation mechanisms during compression on aluminium thin-walled struc-
tures. Two types of deformation mechanisms are presented: inextensional and extensional.
They are differentiated based on whether the hinge line is propagative or stationary, respec-
tively, during deformation. Yamashita et al. [5] experimentally verified that both modes
can occur depending on the shape, trigger mechanisms and thickness of the structure. In
some cases, mixed-mode deformation mechanisms can happen at the same time during
crash. They can become more irregular for structures with smaller thickness.
Gibson [6] divided cellular materials into two different groups: open-cell and closed-
cell. The open-cell materials were characterised by having the voids interconnected while,
in the closed-cell materials, the base material separates each of the voids. As mentioned
by Ashby et al. [7], open-cell aluminium foams have a long and well-defined plateau
stress zone. Using the same approach, both plateau stress and densification strain can be
predicted. Moreover, with the increase of aluminium foam’s density, the plateau stress
increases while the densification strain value is reduced.
Hanssen et al., Güden and Kavi, Zhang et al. and Garai et al. [8–11] experimentally
verified that foam-filled structures absorb more energy than the summation of the energy
absorption capacity of thin-walled structures and aluminium foams when acting inde-
pendently. This phenomenon is called the interaction effect and it is caused by the fric-
tion between the thin-walled structure and the aluminium foam during an impact. On the
other hand, Garai et al. [11] experimentally tested three different types of joints to analyse
their influence on the interaction effect. Adhesive bonding is verified as the best joining

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Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726 707

technique. Nevertheless, the pressing technique reached very similar results, and it was
considered as an attractive and reliable option.
Due to many reasons such as competitive market, cost restrictions or waste reduction,
finding the optimum solution is one of the main priorities in various engineering fields.
To find the optimum solution it is needed to implement an algorithm that checks whether
the optimum solution is achieved. This algorithm is based on a closed-loop simulation and
verifies the optimum solution through a cost/loss function. Nikbakt et al. [12] reviewed the
theory behind optimisation problems with more emphasis on the attribute of cost/loss func-
tion. These can be divided into one-directional and multi-directional problems, discrete
variables and continuous variable problems, local search and random search problems, and
single and multi-objective problems.
However, none of these researchers has studied the filling of open-cell aluminium foams
in an aluminium honeycomb structure and, also, used an optimisation loop to find the best
number of foam-filled cells. In this research paper, not only the above topics will be inves-
tigated but also ABAQUS/Scripting will be used to reach the optimum solution by modify-
ing the geometry dimensions and implementing the desired cost function that will access
the validity of the solution.

2 Experimental Tests

In order to develop material models for both aluminium honeycomb and foam, tensile and
compressive tests were performed, respectively. Empty and foam-filled aluminium honey-
comb specimens were dynamically tested to validate the developed finite element model.

2.1 Material Properties Measurements

2.1.1 Aluminium Honeycomb

Honeycomb structures were made of 1100 aluminium alloy in the H14 temper (Al-
0.95 Si + Fe-0.2 Cu-0.1 Zn-0.05 Mn (wt%)). Figure 1(a) shows engineering tensile
stress–strain curves of the H14 temper aluminium alloy, obtained from specimens, taken

Fig. 1  a Engineering stress–strain curves and b aluminium sheet specimens

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Table 1  Aluminium sheet Dimensions Values [mm]

specimens’ dimensions
Gauge length 50.0
Gauge width 12.5
Thickness 1.0
Overall length [mm] 200.0
Width of grip section [mm] 20.0

parallel to the direction of rolling, whose dimensions are given in Table 1, and tested
photographs are shown in Fig. 1(b). The tensile tests were performed under ASTM
B557M [13] using an Instron 8872 Universal Testing Machine with a strain rate of
0.001 ­s−1.
It can be seen from Fig. 1 that the tensile test results are noticeably scattered. All ten-
sile specimens were taken from the same sheet material with the closed location and so
aspects of processing history such as any heat treatment, and chemical composition can be
ruled out for the scatter inherent in experimental trials. The fact that the strength of thin
specimens is more sensitive to deterioration when defects either from the material itself and
sampling preparation, as well as specimen misalignment, are present, scatter in stress and
failure strain are expected for these thin specimens. It should be noted that only the engi-
neering stress–strain curves of four specimens were presented since one of the specimens
(L3) failed outside the gauge length.
Figure 2 represents the true stress–strain curves that consider the instantaneous cross-
section and the gauge length of the specimen calculated through the following equations
Eq. (1) presented in [14]. The true stress–strain data is needed to develop the plasticity and
failure, material models.

140

120

100
True Stress [MPa]

80

60

40

20

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
True Strain []

Specimen 1 Specimen 2 Specimen 3 Specimen 4

Fig. 2  True stress–strain curves for the four aluminium sheet specimens

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Table 2  Young’s Modulus and Young’s Modulus [GPa] Poisson’s

Poisson’s ratio of the specimens Ratio [-]
tested
Average value 57 0.33
Standard deviation 4 –

(1)
( ) ( )
𝜎T = 𝜎E 1 + 𝜀E ∩ 𝜀T = ln 1 + 𝜀E

From the engineering stress–strain curves, the Young’s Modulus of each specimen was
extracted as summarised in Table 2. A typical value of 0.33 was used for the Poisson’s ratio
for all specimens since only the longitudinal strain was measured during the tensile tests.

2.1.2 Aluminium Foam

A356.2 aluminium alloy was used to vacuum-infiltrating cast 610 mm height hexagonal
bars, having smallest hexagon width of 40 mm, of open-cell aluminium foams using water-
soluble template balls, made from NaCl particles combined with an inorganic binder, with
the size in the range 4.1 – 4.4 mm as a space holder. After leaching in water, the hexago-
nal aluminium foams were cut into specimens with 80 mm in length and T6 heat treated
using the solution treatment at 540˚C for 8 h and the aging treatment at 152˚C for 5 h.
The compression tests on the aluminium foam specimens were performed under BS ISO
13314:2011 [15] using a Shimadzu AGX-V Universal Testing Machine with a strain rate
of 0.003 ­s−1. Table 3 shows the physical properties and mass of each of the five specimens
tested.
Figure 3 shows the stress–strain curves of the five specimens tested under compression
that was characterised by an elastic region that was followed by a well-defined plateau
region and followed by, the occurrence of the densification zone.
The results extracted and the principal parameters from the aluminium foam compres-
sion tests are presented in Table 4.

2.2 Honeycomb Specimens

Two honeycomb structures: empty and foam-filled, as shown for example in Fig. 4, each of
4 specimens, whose average dimensions and weights are given in Table 5, were tested. The
8 empty honeycomb specimens were provided by Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public
Company Limited, while the 250 mm-height hexagonal bars of A356.2 T6 open-cell alu-
minium foam were produced with the welded tensile strength of 150 MPa, as described

Table 3  Physical properties of hexagonal open-cell aluminium foam specimens having pores in the size
range 4.1 – 4.4 mm
Specimen 1 Specimen 2 Specimen 3 Specimen 4 Specimen 5

Density [kg/m3] 970 900 860 870 950

Porosity [%] 64 66 68 67 65
Mass [g] 107 100 94 96 105

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Fig. 3  Stress–strain curves of the compression test and three-stage compression images

in the previous section. Each foam-filled specimens contained 4 aluminium foams, which
were filled into the honeycomb cells without bonding.
Both empty and foam-filled honeycomb specimens were tested under quasi-static condi-
tions to determine the collapse force and to further determine the impact energy that could
be absorbed in the dynamic tests (see Fig. 5). The results for both specimens are presented
in Table 6.
Figure 6 shows, for example, a foam-filled specimen after the quasi-static test. It is
observed that the aluminium foams did not remain in the correspondent honeycomb cell.
After quasi-static tests, it was necessary to conduct the impact tests. As mentioned
before, the impact energy was set based on the collapse force, considering that all energy is
absorbed by the structure. The empty specimen was impacted by a trolley of 900 kg at an
impact speed of 9.3 m/s and the aluminium foam-filled specimen with 900 kg at an impact
velocity of 11.2 m/s. These equated to impact energies of 38.9 kJ and 56.5 kJ, respectively.
Figure 7 shows the side view of the impact test apparatus instants before the impact. The
trolley is animated with the impact energy mentioned before and the specimen is attached
to a fixed plate in the out-of-plane direction.

Table 4  Compression test results for the five specimens tested

Specimen 1 Specimen 2 Specimen 3 Specimen 4 Specimen 5 Average S.D

Young’s modulus 3.4 2.4 2.4 2.5 3.3 2.8 0.5

[MPa]
Plateau stress [MPa] 20 17 16 17 19 18 2
Plateau end stress 26 22 20 22 25 23 2.5
[MPa]
Plateau end strain [] 0.76 0.66 0.75 0.67 0.70 0.71 0.04

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a b

Fig. 4  Top view of a empty and b foam-filled honeycomb specimens

Figure 8 represents the force–displacement curve of the three impact tests. It is observed
an elastic region that is followed by a plateau zone that defines the collapse force. The
applied energy was not enough to observe the complete collapse of the structure and, there-
fore, the densification zone that is developed. However, it is possible to notice that the
curve starts to rise in the last stages of the graph, indicating the hypothetic starting point of
the densification zone. Also, the collapse mode occurred through the development of folds
that started only in the impact end of the specimen. Moreover, the top and bottom cells
moved in the vertical axis and, therefore, did not collapse in the longitudinal axis of impact
due to the opening of the welded joints in the lateral part of the structure.
Figure 9 shows the force–displacement curve of the three impact tests performed on the
foam-filled specimens. The observed behaviour is like the one noticed for the empty speci-
mens. However, in this case, two different amounts of energy were applied, that is, the first
specimens were impacted with the same energy applied to the empty specimens and the
two others with the value based on the quasi-static collapse force.
Figure 10 shows the structure was able to absorb all the impact energy within 119 mm,
approximately, which is a reduction of 36% compared with the empty specimen. The

Table 5  Average dimensions and Dimensions Average Values

weights of honeycomb specimens
External width [mm] 254
External length [mm] 279
External heigth [mm] 250
Single thickness [mm] 1
Double thickness [mm] 2
Mass empty specimen [kg] 2.85
Mass foam-filled specimen [kg] 4.14
Largest cell width [mm] 47
Smallest cell width [mm] 40
Cell side length [mm] 25

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Fig. 5  Quasi-static force–displacement curve for the a empty and b foam-filled specimens

honeycomb cells were separated in half mainly in the foam-filled cells due to the transverse
forces applied by the aluminium foam in the honeycomb cells. The corrugated sheets together
make the honeycomb structure. Due to manufacturing imperfections, it is not possible to utilise

Table 6  Quasi-static Empty Foam-filled

compression test results for Specimen Specimen
empty and foam-filled specimens
Collapse force [kN] 191 304
Plateau end force [kN] 248 395
Plateau end displacement [mm] ––––- 153

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a b

Fig. 6  Foam-filled honeycomb specimen after the quasi-static test a top and b isometric view

the full potential of the aluminium foam, namely, the densification zone. The aluminium foam
on the left was cut in half by the honeycomb cell next to the foam-filled one. This event led to a
bad deformation of the aluminium foam since it is noticed that the upper part was compressed
while the bottom part remained with the initial aspect. The aluminium foam on the right moved
in the transverse direction to the neighbouring honeycomb cell. The bottom part of the alumin-
ium foam showed a brittle behaviour, while the upper part remained the same.

3 Optimisation of Foam‑filled Honeycomb Absorbers

3.1 Material Modelling

To define the plasticity and failure models of aluminium the Johnson–Cook material model was
used. In Eq. (2) and Eq. (3), it represents the plasticity and failure models, respectively [16].

b
a

Fig. 7  a Full view and b side view of impact test apparatus

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Fig. 8  Force–displacement curves of impact test on empty structures and post-test side view

𝜎 = A + B𝜀n 1 + C ln 𝜀∗ 1 − T ∗m (2)
[ ][ ][ ]

p ∗ ][
𝜀f = d1 + d2 ed3 𝜎 1 + d4 ln 𝜀∗ 1 + d5 T ∗
[ ][ ]
(3)

Table 7 represented the parameters that define the plasticity and failure models of 1100-
H14 aluminium. Parameters m, C, ­d4 and ­d5 were extracted from Iqbal et al. research paper
[17] since parameters based on rate and temperature dependence were not experimentally
tested. Regarding the aluminium foam material model, this was developed based on the
aluminium foam compression tests. The aluminium foam material properties are defined
in Table 8.
As shown in Fig. 3, the aluminium foam specimen does not maintain the original
cross-sectional shape during compression and this phenomenon does not happen when

Fig. 9  Force–displacement curves of impact test on foam-filled structures

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a b

Fig. 10  a Side view and b view-cut of the foam-filled specimen after impact test

the foam is filled in the honeycomb structure due to the constraints applied by the wall
of the honeycomb cells. Therefore, the stress–strain curves show a delayed densification
strain that does not represent reality and, consequently, from the theory, it is possible
to predict the aluminium foam mechanical properties concerning the relative density as
shown in Eq. (4) and Eq. (5), presented by [7].
( )n ( )n
E = a2 Es 𝜌𝜌 G = 38 a2 Gs 𝜌𝜌 (4)
s s

( )m ( )
(5)
𝜌
𝜎plateau = k𝜎y 𝜌s
𝜀D = 1 − a1 𝜌𝜌
s

In Table 9, the results for the theoretical approach described above and the com-
parison with the experimental plateau stress from the five tested specimens are shown.
The error percentage observed as a maximum variance was 6.14%, which verifies good
accordance between the theoretical model and the experimental values. Although, the
average error is less than 1.13%.
To model the plasticity properties of the aluminium foam, the “Crushable Foam Plas-
ticity” model is used [17]. This model is intended to analyse the behaviour of crush-
able foams used as energy absorption devices and must be used in conjunction with

Table 7  Johnson–Cook plasticity Parameters Values

and failure models parameters [17]
A [MPa] 116
B [MPa] 32
n 0.323
TM [°C] 775
TR [°C] 23
m 0.86
C 0.001
Reference strain rate 1
d1 0.075
d2 0.33
d3 5.3
d4 0.15
d5 0

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Table 8  Aluminium A356-T6 Properties Values

material properties
Young’s modulus [GPa] 72
Yield stress [MPa] 179
Density [kg/m3] 2,670

a linear elastic material model to simulate the initial elastic behaviour of the material
under compression. Moreover, the crushable foam hardening defines the starting point
of plasticity and the first strain value must be zero with all stress–strain tabular entries
in ascending magnitude.
Three main points describe the plastic curve of an open-cell aluminium foam dur-
ing compression, namely the plateau stress, plateau end stress and the highest value of
stress that occurs at the end of the densification zone. Therefore, these three main points
correspond to the plastic starting point, to the plastic end strain, and the last value of
strain, respectively. In between of these stress–strain points, it was added more points to
avoid convergence issues.

3.2 Finite Element Modelling

The finite element model is composed of an aluminium honeycomb structure and two dis-
crete rigid plates to represent the plate attached to the base of the honeycomb. The impactor
plate is defined with a pre-determined mass and a certain impact velocity. The honeycomb
structure was modelled using the same approach through the corrugated aluminium sheets
to represent half of a hexagonal cell welded together to perform a closed-cell structure. The
element type used in this research project is a four-node shell element with reduced inte-
gration points, hourglass control and element deletion options. An element size of 2.5 mm
was selected to generate a total number of elements of 126,935 for the finite element model
representation. This element size was defined after a mesh convergence analysis and val-
idation with the experimental data obtained from the impact tests. Figure 11 shows the

Table 9  Theoretical plateau stress, densification strain, Young’s Modulus and experimental results comparison
Specimen 1 Specimen 2 Specimen 3 Specimen 4 Specimen 5 Average S.D

Density [kg/m3] 970 900 860 870 950 910 48

Relative density [] 0.36 0.34 0.32 0.33 0.36 0.34 0.02
Exp. plateau stress 20 17 16 17 19 17.8 1.6
[MPa]
Theory plateau 19 17.5 16.6 16.8 18.7 17.7 1.1
stress [MPa]
Plateau stress error 4.36% -5.82% -6.14% -0.31% 2.27% -1.13% 5
[%]
Theory densification 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 –
strain []
Exp. Young’s 3.4 2.4 2.4 2.5 3.3 2.8 0.5
modulus [GPa]
Theory Young’s 3 2.5 2 2 3 2.5 0.5
modulus [GPa]

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Fig. 11  Finite Element Model setup representing the crash box impact

Finite Element Model (FEM) setup that represents the crash box impact. The crash box
is fixed to the bottom plate through a tie constraint, where the master surface is the rigid
plate, and the slave surface is the combination of all honeycomb cells. The tie constraint
defines contact between two surfaces so that there is no relative motion between them. This
technique is implemented to assure a perfect bonding between fillers and internal surface
of each cell [19]. In the foam-filled structure, the procedure is similar, and the aluminium
foams filled into the honeycomb cells are also tied to the bottom rigid plate through the
same tie constraint. Regarding the interactions within the finite element model, a general
“hard” contact was applied with a normal behaviour where the separation between the
impactor plate and the honeycomb crash box was allowed. The interaction between the alu-
minium foam and honeycomb cells was generated with a tangential behaviour contact with
a friction coefficient value of 0.2 [18–21]. The bottom plate is built-in, all displacements
and rotations in all directions were fixed (see Fig. 11).
An initial impact velocity was assigned to the impactor plate. This boundary condition
pretends to simulate the energy of a vehicle hitting the honeycomb crash box. In this case,
the mass of 1,500 kg and impact velocity of 20 m/s were assigned to the impactor, for a
complete structure.

3.2.1 Finite Element Model Assumptions

Three main assumptions were made based on three aspects observed during the experimen-
tal tests. The first assumption is related to the manufacturing imperfections at the top end of
honeycomb specimen, as seen in Fig. 12. These manufacturing imperfections act as trigger

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Fig. 12  Trigger mechanisms at the top of honeycomb specimens

mechanisms so that the structure starts its deformation mechanisms from that end. Moreo-
ver, it is noticed that welded spots at the top-end of the specimen act as a trigger mechanism.
The impact angle is the second assumption that is needed to perform. It is noticed that
the impact angle is not constant throughout the specimen and, consequently, the initial
stiffness of the structure is decreased during impact. The third assumption is the adjust-
ment between the experimentally measured mass and the mass of the finite element model.
This assumption was justified by the behaviour that the honeycomb crash box showed at
the location where the welds failed, and this phenomenon led to a decrease in the crushing
force of the structure. Therefore, to standardise the trigger mechanisms mentioned in the
first assumption, holes were drilled at the top end of the honeycomb crash box model, as
seen in Fig. 13. Figure 13 also shows an inclination in the impactor plate with impact angle
of 3º to the vertical axis that aims to unify the differences in the impact angle which was
observed in experimental tests.

Fig. 13  FE assumptions performed in experimental specimen

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3.2.2 Optimisation Process with ABAQUS

The optimisation process aims to reach the optimum honeycomb crash box. This optimi-
sation loop not only automates the structural design by the formulation and submission
of Python scripts but also analyses the output data and modifies the input parameters to
reach the optimum design. The implementation script, in Python language, designs the
honeycomb crash box, aluminium foams and both bottom and impactor plates, material
properties. This process performs the meshing of all system, assigning the desired num-
ber of foam-filled cells, constraints, interactions, and boundary conditions and finally
submits the job to the solver. This implementation script is shown in Fig. 14.
Once the implementation script is performed and submitted into ABAQUS/CAE, it
is necessary to analyse the data to introduce the optimisation loop script. The criterion
that determines the loop’s continuation is shown in [15] and confirms the maximum
allowable force to be 1.3 times greater than the plateau force. This criterion is then
implemented in a cost function that checks whether the optimum solution is achieved. In
this case, the cost function uses the Mean Squared error that measures the average of the
squares of the errors in comparison with a defined target, Eq. (6).
m
1 ∑
MSE = (Output − Target)2 (6)
2m i=1

where, ‘m’ is the number of data point extracted from the analysis to measure the reaction
force in the crash box. The function allows the extraction of multiple reaction force points
from the analysis and ‘m’ is equal to the number of data points. The Target value is the
maximum allowed force which is 1.3 times greater than the plateau force.
If the criterion is not satisfied, the optimisation loop changes the number of foam-filled
cells and, also, the aluminium foam density and, consequently, the mechanical properties
that were calculated in relation to the aluminium foam’s relative density. To limit the opti-
mum solution to a range of acceptable values, a limiter is implemented to the cost function
so that a maximum error of 3.5% is allowed (see Fig. 15). The optimum design of foam-
filled aluminium crash box is shown in Fig. 16.

Fig. 14  Flowchart that represents the optimisation loop script with ABAQUS

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18 16.57
16
13.54
14

12
9.76
10
Cost

4
2.35 2.22
0.19 0.01
2

Density = 350 kg/m3 Cost Function Limiter

16

15.31
15.17 15.20 15.10
15 14.87
14.54
SEA [kJ/kg]

14.02
14

13

12

Density = 350 kg/m3

Fig. 15  Optimisation results with respect to cost and SEA

4 Results and Discussion

Our finite element results were validated against experimental data. This is performed based
on an empty experimental specimen modelled in ABAQUS/CAE. Figure 17 indicates the
comparison between the finite element model and experimental tests. Although the finite
element model shows a stiffer behaviour, it is important to compare the mean crushing
force and absorbed energy by the structure. These are the most important parameters when
it comes to validation of structures under impact. The FEM model presented in Fig. 16 is
obtained for an element size of 2.5 mm, representing a total number of 126,935 elements.

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a b

Fig. 16  Optimised FE model of aluminium foam-filled honeycomb crash box, a front view, b isometric
view and c side view after impact

Fig. 17  Comparison between

empty FEM and empty dynamic
test specimen

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Table 10  Crushing force and absorbed energy of empty FE model and dynamic tests (bracketed values rep-
resent standard deviation)
FE Experimental

Crushing force [kN] 220.6 224.5 (2.0)

Absorbed energy [kJ] 38.5 38.6 (0.1)

The comparison between FEM crushing force and absorbed energy with the extracted
values from the experimental tests is represented in Table 10. An error of 1.7% was
observed between the FE crushing force and the average crushing force of the experimen-
tal tests and an error of 0.05% was observed between both absorbed energy values. As we
achieved a good agreement between the FEM and experimental results, it is safe to say that
the model validation was satisfied. However, the huge increase in the computational time
makes the use of smaller element sizes impracticable.
After validation of the empty finite element model, it is important to compare both
experimental and numerical results for the aluminium foam-filled structure. Figure 18
indicates the comparison between the force–displacement curves for the two sets of foam-
filled experimental dynamic tests. The curve in red for the FEM represents the impact with
the same energy implemented for the empty specimens. Similar behaviour occurs with the
initial stiffness and the mean crushing force when comparing with the empty structure.
Although the FEM is stiffer than the experimental specimens, the crushing force is practi-
cally the same, as shown in Fig. 18 and Table 11. The main difference between FE and
Experimental results is due to the failure of welded points at joints and trigger mecha-
nisms. These imperfections have reduced the initial stiffness of specimens as it is shown
in Fig. 18, however, this phenomenon has not affected our main goal of finding two main
parameters of specific energy absorption and mean force as can be seen in Fig. 18 and
Table 11 the results are in good agreement. The FE results will be better matched with
experimental data when we improve the design of the honeycomb core and increase the
number and strength of welded points. This part will be implemented in the next phase of
this project.

600
Specimen 1 Specimen 2
500
Specimen 3 Finite Element Model
400
Force [kN]

300

200

100

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Displacement [mm]

Fig. 18  Comparison between foam-filled FE model and dynamic tests

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Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726 723

Table 11  Crushing force and absorbed energy of foam-filled FE model and dynamic tests (bracketed values
represent standard deviation)
a) Foam-filled structure with same impact energy used in empty structures
FE Experimental

Crushing force [kN] 358.9 358.3

Absorbed energy [kJ] 37.8 38.3
b) Foam-filled structure with impact energy calculated from
quasi-static tests
FE Experimental

Crushing force [kN] 356.2 361.0 (11.3)

Absorbed energy [kJ] 53.0 55.5 (0.3)

However, the main differences between the FEM and experimental results occur in the
densification zone. During compression, aluminium foams have a particular behaviour, as
explained in Sect. 2, and reach the densification zone at a certain point of strain. It was also
observed that in the FEM force–displacement curve the densification zone was reached
since it occurred when there was a steep increase in the force value for a small increment
of displacement. This phenomenon is even more noticed when the impact energy is higher.
On the other hand, this fact does not occur in the experimental tests mainly due to the bad
deformation mechanisms that led to the disassembly of some corrugated sheets observed in
the foam-filled specimens, as shown in Fig. 19.
For higher impact energy, the experimental specimen showed a different behav-
iour with an increase in displacement in the axis perpendicular to the impact axis, as
observed in Fig. 19. This phenomenon occurs due to the lateral forces applied by the
aluminium foams in the honeycomb cell walls. Also, this led to the corrugated sheets
disassembly, leading to the movement of some aluminium foams to the neighbouring
cells (see Fig. 20).

Fig. 19  Experimental and FEM results after impact test

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724 Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726

Fig. 20  Cross section of experimental results after impact test

5 Conclusions

The experimental tests procedure was an excellent opportunity to illustrate the differences
between the developed FEM in ABAQUS and the real-case scenario. Both empty and foam-
filled specimens were tested statically and dynamically. Three impact tests were performed
for the two sets of specimens. The calculation of the impact energy was based on the static
crushing force without considering the strain rate effects that occur dynamically. The goal
was to deform the structure as much as possible without reaching a high value of energy.
In the FE modelling of foam-filled specimens, a 2.5 mm element size was used to
achieve accurate results with less time consumed. Trigger mechanisms were implemented
to standardise manufacturing issues. The foam-filled specimens showed different behav-
iour in the densification zone due to the FE assumptions utilised in this case. The separa-
tion of corrugated sheets was not allowed and, also, the aluminium foam does not have a
brittle behaviour, since it is known as a character of the ABAQUS crushable foam model.
In the end, an error of 1.72% and 0.05% was achieved for the crushing force and absorbed
energy, respectively, for the empty structure. The full-scale crash box modelling is in line
with the developed FEM for the experimental specimens and the process was identical. The
empty structure is used as a term of comparison with the foam-filled crash boxes.
The implementation and optimisation loops were very useful not only to reach the opti-
mum structure but also to automate the modelling process since it allows the quick modifi-
cation of parameters like thickness, number of cells, material properties and impact energy.
Nevertheless, there are opportunities to improve the model further. In this regard, choosing
a suitable number of foam-filled cells, aluminium foam mechanical properties or even the
optimum number of honeycomb cells was essential in this study. The optimum structure
was achieved by filling 18 honeycomb cells with aluminium foam, with a density of 350 kg/
m3. Finally, foam-filling the crash box allows the control of densification zone by changing
the number of foam-filled cells and aluminium foam’s density and different impact energies
required a different arrangement of foam-filled cells to reach an optimum design.

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Applied Composite Materials (2023) 30:705–726 725

Data Availability The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from
the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

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