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The crushing behavior of axially compressed short thin-walled open-section columns was studied. Results of model tests on 0.1 mm thick aluminum foil specimens have shown that the panels collapsing in the symmetric and asymmetric deformation mode provide respectively, upper and lower bound for the energy absorbed in any other buckling mode. In both cases, the crush response of the panel was predicted theoretically with a reasonable accuracy. Attempts were made to introduce beneficial geometric imperfections of a specified magnitude so that the structure will be forced to collapse in the most energy efficient deformation mode.