An experimental investigation of the expansion of composite tubes

• Main Author: Koh, Khai Joe.
• Other Authors: Chai Gin Boay
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49519
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Effective energy absorbers materials are vitally important in many industries especially when it comes to reducing fatalities rate like automotive industry. Introduction of expansion tube could be one of the competent methods of energy absorption system in vehicles. Since bare tube itself might not be sufficient to achieve the requirement of high energy absorption, application of additional reinforcement wrapping layers as discussed in several past research paper can help in further enhancing the energy absorption. Yet, concern will be on increasing specific energy adsorption as additional mass introduced creates another disadvantage. In this report, woven prepreg (carbon fibre-reinforced polymer) is chosen to be the tube wrapping material for expansion testing to compute energy adsorption capacities. Woven prepreg is chosen for its relatively high ultimate tensile strength and lightweight property. There are three different set of tubes used, namely Aluminium 1100, Stainless Steel 304 and Mild Steel. Wrapping process is done manually before placing the specimen in oven for curing. The setup is done by changing different combination of tube material and wrapping layers. The results indicate better energy absorption capabilities with the increase in number of woven prepreg wrapping layers. All set of tubes show improvement in energy absorption as compared to respective bare tubes. In term of specific energy absorption, the combination which gives best results is by using Mild Steel tubes. It is found that ductility of tubes plays an imperative role in producing tubes with high specific energy absorption.