Indentation experiments on novel sandwich composite tubes

• This article introduces a novel energy absorber of sandwich tubes.
• The composite tubes are filled by solid agglomerated cork cylinder.
• The sandwich tubes are laterally compressed during the indentation process.
• The corresponding cork specimens and the empty composite tubes are tested, too.
• Energy absorption behaviors of three types of the specimens are discussed.

This article introduces a novel energy absorber of sandwich tube with the agglomerated cork core and the composite tube during the indentation process under the applied quasi-static lateral loading by a solid cylindrical rigid indenter. Also, the corresponding cork specimens and the empty composite tubes are tested, too. The solid cylindrical cores made of agglomerated cork are prepared by punching a cork sheet with 200 kg/m3 density and positioned into the composite tubes to manufacture the cork-filled tubes. The results show that the cork-filled composite tubes have an energy absorption capacity up to 5.65 times of the corresponding cork sample and up to 6.06 times of the corresponding empty tube. Also, it is found that total absorbed energy by a cork-filled composite tube is 174% higher than summation of absorbed energy by the corresponding empty tube and the cork sample. Also, specific absorbed energy by all the specimens is discussed.