Deformation and energy absorption properties of cenosphere-aluminum syntactic foam-filled tubes under axial compression

The cenosphere-aluminum syntactic foam-filled tubes were prepared by inserting aluminum matrix syntactic foam which is reinforced with cenospheres whose average particle sizes are different (150 μm, 200 μm and 300 μm) into empty steel tubes. Quasi-static axial compression tests were conducted on empty steel tubes, cenosphere-aluminum syntactic foam filler and cenosphere-aluminum syntactic foam-filled tubes. Based on the experimental results, numerical simulation was carried out to investigate the effects of the thickness of the tube wall and the type of filler on crushing behaviour of cenosphere-aluminum syntactic foam-filled tubes. It has been shown that the tube wall can effectively restrain the syntactic foam filler and improve the plastic deformation ability of the specimen. In addition, the interaction between the two can significantly improve the bearing capacity of the foam-filled tube. The height of the specimen has little effect on its peak stress, while a large height-to-diameter ratio may cause instability, which is not conducive to the energy absorption of the specimen. The increase of the tube wall thickness is beneficial to increase the specific energy absorption of the foam-filled tube.