Experimental Investigation on Stacking Sequence of Glass Fiber Composite Tubes under Quasi-static Axial Compression

Composite materials due to their superior mechanical properties, cost effective and lightweight are considered as possible candidates for use in modern automobile and energy absorbing structures. The energy absorption ability depends on the structure geometry, stacking sequence and the way in which crushing taking place. Circular or square sectioned tubes are one of the most commonly used structural elements due to their prevalent occurrence and easy manufacturability. In this paper, the crushing behavior and energy absorption of cylindrical composite tubes under axial quasi-static compression loading are experimentally investigated. The composite tubes with similar thickness and diametre were made of combination of unidirectional (UD), coarse and fine woven E/glass fibers and epoxy resin as matrix using hand laying up technique. Moreover, two different length to diameter ratios (L/D) were considered to distinguish the progressive failure mechanisms through comparing the obtained load-displacement and calculated specific energy absorption (SEA) of experiments. The results reveal that UD fiber composite tubes show better energy absorption in both L/D ratio but failure mode happens as soon as it was predicted. In the other hand, the combination of woven with UD fiber show better energy absorption and almost full crush length in both L/D ratio, which means, in some cases it will be suitable to use this kind of stacking sequence rather than UD fibers