Crashworthiness of cardboard panels reinforced with braided glass fiber rods for vehicle side impact protection

Abstract

This paper investigates the quasi-static compression properties of cardboard panels reinforced with braided glass fiber rods manufactured using a tubular braiding method. Compression tests are performed on single- and two-layer panels reinforced with varying number of rods and panel layer orientation. The crushing results of single-layer panels show more progressive crushing behavior than those of two-layer panels for different number of rods. In two-layer panels, certain rods are inclined from the direction of applied load due to deformation of the surrounding cardboard, resulting in reduced specific energy absorption compared with single-layer panels. Moreover, panels consisting of two layers of cardboard oriented in the same direction perform better than when the layers are off-set 90° where cardboard shifting is more pronounced. The role of cardboard is to constrain the rods from excessive splaying, causing greater levels of fiber fragmentation which consumes more energy compared with rods without cardboard.