Experimental and Numerical Study of Energy Absorption Behaviour of Glass and Carbon Epoxy Composite Tubes under Static Compressive Loading

Compression test on glass and carbon fiber epoxy composites tubes were conducted.Effect of tube thickness and fiber type on the load -displacement behavior as well as energy absorption of composites tubes has been investigated.All these parameters found to be effective on the load-displacement behavior and energy absorption capacity of composite tubes.Results obtained from the study shows that, carbon epoxy stands higher load and energy absorption capability than glass epoxy.To simulate the behavior of composite tubes ABAQUS Finite Element Software package was used.Elastic orthotropic material model along with a Hashin Damage model was employed to simulate the load-displacement relations of carbon and glass composite tubes.FE predicted and experimental load displacement curves matched well up to the first failure of the tubes.The FE predicted and experimentally obtained maximum loads were very close.However the FE predicted behavior after the first failure zone deviated from experimental results.The level of deviation was different for each case.Hence FE predicted and experimental energy absorption was not the same.