Comparison of the crushing performance of hollow and foam-filled small-scale composite tubes with different geometrical shapes for use in sacrificial cladding structures

Sivakumar Palanivelu, Wim Van Paepegem, Joris Degrieck, John Vantomme, Dimitrios Kakogiannis, Johan Van Ackeren, Danny Van Hemelrijck, Jan Wastiels

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    This paper presents the quasi-static crushing performance of nine different geometrical shapes of small-scale glass/polyester composite tubes filled with polyurethane closed-cell foam for use in sacrificial cladding structures. The effect of polyurethane foam on the crushing characteristics and the corresponding energy absorption is addressed for each geometrical shape of the composite tube. Composite tubes with two different thicknesses (1 mm and 2 mm) have been considered to study the influence of polyurethane foam on the crushing performance. From the present study, it was found that the presence of polyurethane foam inside the composite tubes suppressed the circumferential delamination process and fibre fracturing; consequently, it reduced the specific energy absorption of composite tubes. Furthermore, the polyurethane foam attributed to a higher peak crush load for each composite tube. However, the presence of polyurethane foam inside the composite tubes significantly increased the stability of the crushing phenomena especially for the square and hexagonal cross-sectional composite tubes with 1 mm wall thickness. The results from this study are compared with our previous results for composite tubes without polyurethane foam [1].

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)434-445
    Number of pages12
    JournalComposites Part B:Engineering
    Volume41
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2010

    Keywords

    • A. Foams
    • A. Glass fibres
    • B. Delamination
    • D. Mechanical testing

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