Crashworthiness optimization of circular tubes with functionally-graded thickness

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new multi-objective optimization procedure for crashworthiness optimization of thin-walled structures especially circular tubes with functionally graded thickness.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed optimization approach is based on finite element analyses for construction of sample design space and verification; gene-expression programming (GEP) for generating algebraic equations (meta-models) to compute objective functions values (peak crash force and specific energy absorption) for design parameters; multi-objective genetic algorithms for generating design parameters alternatives and determining optimal combination of them. The authors have also utilized linear and non-linear least square regression meta-models as a benchmark for GEP.

Findings

It is shown that the proposed approach is able to generate Pareto optimal designs which are in a very good agreement with the actual results.

Originality/value

The paper presents the application of a genetic programming-based method, namely, GEP first time in the literature. The proposed approach can be used to all kinds of related crashworthiness problems.

Citation

Baykasoglu, A. and Baykasoglu, C. (2016), "Crashworthiness optimization of circular tubes with functionally-graded thickness", Engineering Computations, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 1560-1585. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-08-2015-0245