Abstract
Straight and tapered thin-walled tubes of rectangular cross-section have been well established as impact energy absorbers under axial loading. This paper investigates the energy absorption capacity and peak transmitted load of partially tapered rectangular tubes. It is shown that these characteristics are notably affected by such design variables as the taper angle and the length of the tapered section. A simulation-based approach is proposed for the fast determination of the optimum geometry of partially tapered tubes. The approach is based on the numerical prediction of the tube's load—deflection response in dynamic loading for various values of design parameters within their respective ranges, followed by a neural net approximation of the finite element (FE) model. The verified neural model would then be used in a multiobjective optimization algorithm that would find Pareto optimal solutions to the design problem. Each solution would be characterized by a non-dominated compromise between maximizing the energy absorption capacity and minimizing the peak impact load.