Crashworthiness Characteristic of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Composite Tubes Under Quasi Static Loading

Abstract

The overarching goal of this final year project are to design and fabricate a composite glass fibre reinforced with three different types of polymers (epoxy, polyester, and vinyl ester) followed by studying the crashworthiness characteristic under quasi -static load by using a universal testing machine. The composite specimens were fabricated by applying the hand layup technique by using woven glass fibre reinforced with the mentioned polymers as a resin. The crashworthiness characteristic of the composite tubes were evaluated by measuring the peak load, mean load, specific energy absorption, total energy absorption, and crush force efficiency with an addition of their fabrication costs. The failure mode and behavior of the tubes were studied and analyze by taking pictures of each crushed specimens and recording of their load-displacement curves when conducted the compression test. There were two types of failure mode identified through out the study on the specimens either local buckling or lamina bending. The vinyl ester composite was identified to be the most desirable since it gives the highest peak load, mean load, total energy absorption, specific energy absorption, and crush force efficiency values when compared to the other type of composite polymers. However, it was found that polyester had the lowest fabrication cost needed among the others. The whole project was successfully completed without any minor or major accident along the process from beginning until the completion.