Energy-Absorbing Performance of Metallic Thin-Walled Porous Tubes Filled with Liquid Crystal Elastomers Under Dynamic Crush

Metallic thin-walled porous tubes have been widely applied in energy absorption fields due to their unique mechanical properties. Inspired by foam-filled structures, liquid crystal elastomers as a new category of metamaterials were filled in metallic thin-walled porous tubes to obtain a novel composite energy-absorbing structure that can improve energy-absorbing capabilities. By means of experiments and numerical simulations, this paper investigated deformation modes and the energy-absorbing performance of metallic thin-walled porous tubes filled with liquid crystal elastomers under dynamic crush. Moreover, the effects of geometric parameters on deformation modes and the energy-absorbing performance of the metallic thin-walled porous tubes filled with liquid crystal elastomers were analyzed. The results show that liquid crystal elastomers can enhance energy-absorbing capabilities under dynamic crush and geometric parameters can affect deformation modes, further affecting the energy-absorbing performance of metallic thin-walled porous tubes filled with liquid crystal elastomers.