Experimental Investigation on the Crashworthiness of Braided Glass/Epoxy Tubes Subjected to Axial Impacting

Abstract

This paper presented an experimental study on the low-velocity impact response of triaxial braided composite circular tubes, which were fabricated with S-glass/epoxy composite. The impact responses were recorded and analyzed in terms of impact load-displacement curves and specific energy absorption. In addition, four basic failure modes called delaminating, splaying, fragmental fracture and progressive folding were founded. The levels of the mean impact load and specific energy absorption (SEA) are determined by the energy absorption mechanisms, which are related to the dominant failure modes of the tubes. In general, delamination which exhibits the poor energy absorbing performance is the dominant failure mode for all the specimens. Impact test results showed that all three types of tubes had almost the same SEA. Compared to the quasi-static test results, the first peak load and the mean load decrease at about 50% and 10% respectively, SEA generally decreases at an average level 10%.