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Tubular composites are widely used in many industrial applications, and there is need to use new material and reliable manufacturing processes to improve the performance and process aspects. The current research presents a detailed study to understand the flexure response of rectangular tubular composites based on thin ply carbon fibres and Elium® resin. Another aim was to understand the failure mechanisms of novel tubular thermoplastic composite systems and carry out a baseline comparison with Epoxy-based tubular systems. In the current research, a bladder-assisted resin transfer moulding process was used to manufacture hollow thermoplastic composite tubes, and the bending behaviour of thin ply carbon (TPC) composite parts with novel Elium® (EL) and Epoxy (EP) resin as the matrix material was studied using a detailed experimental study. A testing method with optimized support span and a saddle was used to carry out three-point bending tests on the tubular composite structures. The TPC/EL composite tubes have shown 10% higher bending strength, with a noticeable increase in deformation due the presence of extended plasticity attributes for acrylic Elium resin. Failure mechanisms studied with the detailed microscopic investigation have shown severe catastrophic failure for epoxy-based composite tubes; however, acrylic Elium®-based composite tubes have shown different damage modes such as fibre splitting, resin infragmentation, and fibre resin-interfacial cracking.

In the current research, the delamination behavior under Mode I and Mode II loading for the hybrid carbon-thermoplastic fabrics in conjunction with novel liquid thermoplastic acrylic Elium® resin processable at ambient conditions was studied. The experimentation by incorporating doublers methodology, studying the performance under Mode I and Mode II loading, and understanding failure mechanisms using surface morphological fractography is deliberated. Hybrid Carbon-Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPP)/Elium® composite has shown a 22.81% higher GIC and a 22.2% higher GIIC than Carbon-UHMWPP/Epoxy composite. On the contrary, the Carbon_Ultra-high molecular weight polypropylene (UHMWPE)/Elium® has shown an 11.11% higher Mode I critical energy release rate (GIC) and a 7.58% higher Mode II critical energy release rate (GIIC) than Carbon_UHMWPE/Epoxy composite. Hybrid fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites have shown severe plastic deformation of the matrix, rough fracture surface, and micro-cracks on the de-bonding surface, extensive fiber bridging, and crack branching which contributed to the improvement in the delamination behavior. Hybrid fiber architecture is also found to be detrimental by inducing crack arresting mechanisms including the tortuous crack path and the resin-rich pockets path due to the mismatch of the size of the fiber yarns.