Crushing and energy absorption performance of different geometrical shapes of small-scale glass/polyester composite tubes under quasi-static loading conditions

This paper presents the quasi-static crushing performance of nine different geometrical shapes of small-scale composite tubes. The idea is to understand the effect of geometry, dimension and triggering mechanism on the progressive deformation of small-scale composite tubes. Different geometrical shapes of the composite tubes have been manufactured by hand lay-up technique using uni-directional E-glass fabric (with single and double plies) and polyester resin. Dedicated quasi-static tests (144 tests) have been conducted for all nine geometrical shapes with different t/D (thickness–diameter) ratios and two triggering profiles (45° chamfering and tulip pattern with an included angle of 90°). From this unique study, it was found that the crushing characteristics and the corresponding energy absorption of the special geometrical shapes are better than the standard geometrical shapes such as square and hexagonal cross sections. Furthermore, the tulip triggering attributed to a lower peak crush load followed by a steady mean crush load compared to the 45° chamfering triggering profile which resulted into a higher energy absorption in most of the geometrical shapes of the composite tubes.