On the axial crush performance of PVC foam-filled aluminum/CFRP hybrid circular tube

Abstract

In this study, an experimental investigation was carried out to improve the energy absorption capability of the circular aluminum tubes. For this purpose, different specimen configurations such as PVC foam-filled, empty hybrid (strengthened with CFRP) and PVC foam-filled hybrid tubes were prepared and tested under axial compression. It is noted from the experiments that the contribution of foam filling maximized when it was used with CFRP together. The results revealed that energy absorption capacity (EAC) of the foam-filled hybrid tube was 2.7 times of the base tube. Moreover, the specific energy absorption (SEA) value enhanced almost 70% compared to that of the base tube and reached 34.9 J/gr.