Deformation and energy absorption characters of Al‐CFRP hybrid tubes under quasi‐static radial compression

Abstract

To take into account the lightweight and collision safety of the energy absorber, metal-composite hybrid thin-walled tubes have been widely studied, which combine the low-cost metal and high-strength composites. Therefore, the deformation mechanism and the characteristics of the carbon fiber reinforced plastic wound thin-walled aluminum tube (Al-CFRP) were investigated under radial compression condition. Firstly, aluminum tubes, CFRP tubes, and four winding angles of Al-CFRP hybrid tubes (27 , 45 , 74 , 90) are experimentally analyzed. The contrastive results show that the stability and energy absorption of the Al-CFRP hybrid tube are improved and the winding angle is one of the important factors that affects the radial compression performance of the hybrid tube. And then based on the hybrid model, some theoretical relations are derived to forecast the initial collapse force and energy absorption quickly. The theoretical analysis shows that the radial force on the hybrid tube during the compression is also dependent on the thickness ratio of Al-CFRP layers complicatedly except the winding angle. Therefore, the effects of the winding angle (0-90) and thickness ratio of Al-CFRP layers (0.25-3.5) on the radial compression performance are investigated. The theoretical predication results show that the hybrid with the winding angle of 90 and thickness ratio of Al-CFRP layers of 0.25 performs over six times of the initial collapse force than the Al tube. Finally, the simulated model based on ANSYS and LS-DYNA is established to explain the reason for the better radial compression performance (A5C10S90) and the deformation mechanism of the hybrid tube, through the stress analysis of inner Al tube, inner CFRP layer, and outer CFRP layer, respectively. It is found that the Al-CFRP hybrid tube (especially 90) under radial compression shows better bearing capacity which represents the higher initial collapse force, total energy absorption and specific energy absorption, due to the supporting of the inner Al tube and the protection of the outer CFRP tube.

Crashworthiness analysis and multi‐objective optimization of Al/CFRP tubes with induced holes

“…Similarly, Kim et al [23] found that the specific EA (SEA) of Al/CFRP hybrid square tube can be increased by nearly 30% under bending load, and Ma et al [24] found that the CFRP/steel tube can increase the SEA by 21.4%. Ma et al [25][26][27] studied the crashworthiness of the Al/CFRP tube under different loading conditions, showing that the Al/CFRP tube has a good application prospect in automotive EA devices. Emadi et al [28,29] found that tempered Al/composite tubes have better crashworthiness than annealed Al/composite tubes, and also studied the relationship between the thickness of Al and the thickness of composite materials, which has a good guiding significance for the design of hybrid tubes.…”

Theoretical prediction model of mean crushing force of CFRP‐Al hybrid circular tubes under axial compression

“…[33] Compared with pure CFRP tube and aluminum (Al) tube, the hybrid tube has better energy absorption capacity. [34][35][36][37] However, the deformation mode and energy absorption mechanism of a hybrid tube under axial loading are more complex than that of a single material tube. And the fabrication and experimental testing cost of the composite-metal hybrid tube is high, and more mechanical properties are needed for numerical simulation and analysis.…”

Multi-objective crashworthiness optimization of CFRP/Al hybrid tube under transverse loading

“…As a common energy absorption structure in automobiles, the thin-walled tube has been widely investigated under different loading modes, 3 especially subjected to axial crushing [4][5][6][7][8][9] and radial crushing. 10 Nevertheless, Kallina et al 11 had pointed out up to 90% of structural damage in automobile crash accidents was caused by transverse loading. Therefore, it is of great engineering significance to study failure and energy absorption of thin-walled structures under the transverse load.…”