Influence of curvy stiffeners on the axial crushing response of 3D-printed polymer composite cylindrical tubular structures

Abstract

Fused deposition modeling, is one of the highly efficient layer-wise additive manufacturing techniques that have shown great prospective in fabricating the energy-absorbing structures as per the designed geometry with appreciable accuracy. In this research study, the axial crushing performance of various polymer and polymer composite-based cylindrical tubular structures with different types of curved stiffeners is investigated experimentally. Four design configurations were proposed for the cylindrical tube with curved stiffeners and all the tubular samples were fabricated through fused deposition modeling-based 3D printing technique. Subsequently, quasi-static axial crushing tests were performed for the successfully fabricated tubes and their axial crushing characteristics were determined and compared. Overall results indicated that the P/CF-CCS1 configuration shows highly improved energy absorption efficiency than the other tube configurations considered in this study. Cylindrical tubes with curvy stiffeners show a more stabilized crushing response with better energy absorption capability in all of the proposed tube configurations.