We study the effects of curvature on the energy absorption characteristics of cylindrical corrugated tubes under compression by isogeometric analysis and experiments. The corrugated volume is constructed by revolving a wavelike B-spline profile surface about the vertical axis. The curvature at peaks of the profile curve is gradually increased from a smaller value to a larger value while the wavelength and amplitude are kept unchanged. This leads to three curvature distribution patterns, which are found to significantly affect the energy absorption characteristics of the corrugated tube. Examples show that the tube with the largest curvature pattern absorbs around 21% more energy than that with the smallest curvature pattern. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.