Abstract
This paper presents experimental studies and analyses on mild steel tube specimens that are indented by a rigid but blunt wedge-shaped indenter at the midspan. Three different support conditions are investigated: simply supported ends, fully fixed ends and the whole tube lying on a flat surface. A test program was carried out to determine the collapse loads and energy-absorbing capabilities of tubes of different sizes. Based on a dimensional argument and the experimental plots, empirical closed-form expressions have been established for the collapse loads and energy. Generally, good agreement has been obtained between the empirical equations and the experimental data. The empirical equations can provide an important first-hand guide for design engineers and analysts in this subject area.
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Abbreviations
- d :
-
tube diameter
- E :
-
Young's modulus
- L :
-
tube length
- M 0 :
-
full plastic bending moment of a tube section
- P :
-
load
- P 0 :
-
collapse load
- t :
-
wall thickness
- W :
-
energy absorption
- \(\bar \delta _e \) :
-
elastic central deflection of tube
- δp :
-
local plastic dent depth
- \(\bar \delta _p \) :
-
local dent depth at the collapse load
- δ T :
-
indenter displacement
- \(\bar \delta _T \) :
-
indenter displacement at the collapse load
- σ o :
-
yield stress of material
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Ong, L.S., Lu, G. Collapse of tubular beams loaded by a wedge-shaped indenter. Experimental Mechanics 36, 374–378 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02328581
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02328581