Crash Energy Absorption of Braided Composite Tubes and its Application in Vehicle Passive Safety

Abstract

Braided composite tubular structures are of interest as viable energy absorbing components to improve vehicle passive safety. Unfortunately, there are many difficulties in predicting the crash response of braided composite tubes. In this study, a progressive failure model for braided composite materials, which had been implemented as a user material model in ABAQUS/Explicit, was used to simulate the axial crash response of braided composite tubes. It was shown that the model adequately captured the failure characteristics (such as matrix cracking, fiber fracturing and delamination) and energy absorption of braided composite tubes under axial compression. In addition, the simulation results show that braided composites have higher energy absorption performance compared to traditional metals.