Innovation Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Abstract
This paper describes experimental research of improved type of collision kinetic energy absorber. Absorber
works on the principle of shrinking a foam filled tube of circular cross section. During collision, a seamless
tube is passing through a special cone bush, extrusion the tube and compressing the foam. Energy is
absorbed by the plastic deformation of the tube, friction between the tube and the cone bush and through
deformation of the PU foam. The tubes were filled with PU foam higher density. This new type of absorber
enables gradual increase of deformation resistance and greater absorption power with compact dimensions.
Scaled samples have been tested in the laboratory conditions. The influence of the PU foam and different
geometries on absorption characteristics, as well as the benefits of using such an absorber, are presented
and discussed in this paper. The results show that the foam filled absorber has approximately 12% higher
absorption power than the only extrusion absorber by itself