Abstract
In order to explore the transverse bending responses of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) square tubes filled with aluminum foam, the three-point bending tests were carried out on an INSTRON machine, the full-field deformation measurement was performed using a 3D-DIC test system, the numerical model was established by ABAQUS/Explicit, and the bending stiffness was calculated by the improved analytical model based on shear-deformable beam theory. The discrepancies of experimental data, numerical results, and analytical predictions were acceptable, which were within 5%. The failure modes and mechanical properties of the filled tubes were experimentally captured and numerically predicted. Due to the filling effect of aluminum foam, the ultimate load, bending stiffness, and energy absorption of the filled CFRP square tubes increased, comparing to those of the hollow CFRP square tubes. With the increase of the aluminum foam density, the ultimate load, bending stiffness, and energy absorption of the filled tubes increased, while the specific ultimate load, specific bending stiffness, and specific energy absorption decreased.
Highlights
In order to better understanding of crashworthiness of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) tubes, the experimental investigation into the aluminum foam, hollow CFRP square tube, and CFRP square tube filled with aluminum foam will be performed under the quasi-static three-point transverse bending condition in this paper, and the full-field strain of the CFRP tubes will be characterized by the threedimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) test system
Comparing the curves of HT-1 and FT-1, it is clear that FT-1 was always above HT-1, which revealed that the CFRP square tube filled with aluminum foam had better loadcarrying capacity and energy absorption efficiency than those of hollow CFRP square tube
Within the limitation of the study, the important conclusions can be summarized as follows: (1) e load-deflection curves of the aluminum foam, hollow CFRP square tube, and CFRP square tube filled with aluminum foam were divided into initial elastic bending stage and bending collapse stage. e full-field strain distributions of the experimental measurement and numerical prediction were well agreed
Summary
With the increasing demands on safety and crashworthiness of vehicle transportation, a large number of researches have been carried out on the energy absorption capacity, crash response, and progressive collapse mode of energy absorbing devices from experimental and numerical points of view [1,2,3,4]. e load-carrying capacity and energy absorption capacity of automobile structural components are the key issues in lightweight design of vehicle body structure [5,6,7].in-walled tubular structure as a common structural form in engineering has widely been used in automobile structural parts [8,9,10]. E load-carrying capacity and energy absorption capacity of automobile structural components are the key issues in lightweight design of vehicle body structure [5,6,7]. Movahedi and Linul [25] explored the uniaxial compression properties of thin-walled steel tubes filled with closed-cell aluminum foam; and they concluded that inserting aluminum foam as filler materials improved the energy absorption by 23%. Mohsenizadeh and Ahmad [26] studied the crushing characteristics and energy absorption of thin-walled aluminum tubes filled with auxetic foam under the axial loading condition. Mathematical Problems in Engineering increasing the auxeticity level of foam filler enhanced crashworthiness performance of foam-filled structures under both quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions. Asavavisithchai et al [27] investigated the effect of tube length on the bucking mode and energy absorption of aluminum foam-filled tubes under quasi-static axial loading; and they found that the energy absorption of foam-filled tube was higher than the sum of the absorbed energy of foam and hollow tube individually due to interaction effect
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