Energy‐absorption performance of composite corrugated plates with corrugated‐shape ditch plug initiator

To improve the energy‐absorbing capacity of composite corrugated plate, the axial impact responses under axial quasi‐static crush loading is numerically studied and compared. Both the intra‐ply damage and delamination interface damage are considered. To accurately capture the progressive damage propagation, the failure material is modeled with a stiffness degradation method combined with the exponential damage evolution laws. To improve the crush performance, a novel corrugated‐shape ditch plug initiator (CDP) is proposed. The effects of extensive parameters including the ditch width and the inner geometry are carried out. Results show that well agreements between the numerical model and experimental results are identified on failure modes and energy‐absorption characteristics. The corrugated plate with CDP can increase the specific energy absorption by 20.3% than non‐plug initiator. The total of energy absorption is the decreasing function with respect to the width of ditch. The crushing performance can be improved due to the change in the inner geometry parameters. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:1708–1717, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers