This paper investigates the energy absorption characteristics of thin-walled rectangular tubes. In the compact mode, the crushing process of a thin-walled tube is analyzed into 3 parts by the ratio of outward to inward fold length. The mean crush load and the half-wave folding length are determined by using minimum energy principle. The effective crush distance can be determined when half-wave folding length is known, and the number of folds is derived when crush distance is given. Thus when the crush distance is given, energy absorption capacity can be estimated with mean crush load and number of folds. And the theoretical value is proven experimentally.