Experimental study on the axial crushing behaviour of pultruded composite tubes

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the progressive deformation behaviour of uni-directional pultruded composite tubes subjected to an axial impact load. Pultruded square and circular profiles with glass-polyester and glass-vinylester combinations were used for this study. Two types of triggering profiles were incorporated to investigate the effect of triggering on the energy absorption. All above combinations were investigated for three different impact velocities (9.3, 12.4 and 14 m/s). The crushing peak and mean load characteristics of the composite tubes with different triggering profiles and their progressive failure modes are presented. To measure the impact velocity and the impact force, a contactless method using digital image correlation technique was adopted. The effects of the geometry profile, triggering, strain rate and the type of resin on energy absorption of the composite tubes were studied in detail. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.