Flexural stiffness of thick walled composite tubes

This paper presents the experimental work done on the determination of the flexural stiffness of thick composite tubes. Thick composite tubes were manufactured using an automated fiber placement machine. A special test set up was developed to subject the tubes to pure bending. Both strain gages and Digital Image Correlation were used to determine the strains, and subsequently the flexural stiffness. Experimental flexural stiffnesses of the tubes were determined. Results are compared with those calculated using the different equations.