Experimental Investigation of Axial Cutting of AA6061 Extrusions under a Tension Deformation Mode 2020-01-0206

A plethora of applications in the transportation industry for both vehicular and roadside safety hardware, especially seatbelts, harnesses and restraints, rely on tensile loading to dissipate energy and minimize injury. There are disadvantages to the current state-of-the-art for these tensile energy absorbers, including erratic force-displacement responses and low tensile force efficiencies (TFE). Axial cutting was extensively demonstrated by researchers at the University of Windsor to maintain a stable reaction force, although exclusively under compressive loading. A novel apparatus was investigated in this study which utilized axial cutting under a tensile loading condition to absorb energy. A parametric scope was chosen to include circular AA6061 extrusions in both T4 and T6 temper conditions with an outer diameter of 63.5 mm and wall thickness of 3.18 mm. The experiments were performed quasi-statically utilizing a custom, hydraulically powered long stroke tension/compression testing machine with a maximum capacity of 300kN. Strain-gauge based load cells and non-contact displacement transducers were implemented to measure the cutting force and displacement response of the setup. The results demonstrated highly stable force responses, with cutting force efficiencies typically in the vicinity of 90%. The experimental force-displacement responses exhibited a high degree of repeatability and correlation to the analytical model. Critical performance metrics, including the mean load and total energy absorption, were predicted to within 5 %. Additionally, the complete force-displacement response was predicted utilizing an analytical modeling approach with an average validation metric of approximately 0.92.