Energy Dissipating Composite Member With Progressive Failure

Abstract

A tailored structural member that is designed to generate a yield-type response, with applicability to the arrest of a moving body. The structural member comprises a primary load path connected in parallel to a longer secondary load path at a pair of common nodes. The primary load path is designed to fail at a lower load than that required to fail the secondary load path when subjected to a tensile force. As a result of the load redistribution achieved through the use of the redundant paths provided by the primary and secondary load paths, the structural member dissipates more kinetic energy from the moving body within a given set of displacement and deceleration force constraints than is possible using a conventional, uniform cross-section member.