Simulation of buffer bow on axial crushing

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of mesh sizes, plate thickness and crushing force of a bulbous bow. The simulations only consider the lateral collision of crushing plate between bulbous bows and the results is compared with available experimental data. (Endo, Yamada et al. 2002) simplified experiments models are used in this study and couple with FLO damage criteria to predict collapse mechanism and rupture of bulbous bow. The simulation analyses also take into consideration of speed of crushing plate that crush the bulbous bow. Throughout the analysis mild steel S235JR material properties is adopted and coefficient of friction is set as 0.3 for general contact friction of mild steel. The mesh sizes, plate thickness and speed of crushing plate are set from (20mm-50tnm), (10mm - 25mm) and (0.6m/s - 5m/s) respectively. The FLO damage criteria is discussed and the results gave a good correlation between (Endo, Yamada et al. 2002) experimental data and finite element analysis.