• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.84-87
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• 2000

Square tubes used for vehicle structure components have an important role on keeping its stiffness and preserving occupant safety in vehicle collision and rollover in which it experience axial collapse, bending collapse or both. Bending collapse, which absorbs kinetic energy of the impact and retains a survival space for the occupant, is a dominant failure mode in oblique collision and rollover. Thus, in this paper, the bending collapse characteristics such as the maximum bending moment and energy absorption capacity of the square tube replaced by light-weight material were evaluated and presented. The bending test of cantilever tubes which were fabricated with aluminum, GFRP and aluminum/ GFRP hybrid by co-curing process was performed. Then the maximum bending moment and the energy absorption capacity from the moment-angle curve were evaluated. Based on the test results, it was found that aluminum/ GFRP hybrid tube can show better specific energy absorption capacity compared to the pure aluminum or GFRP tube and can convert unstable collapse mode which may occur in pure GFRP tube to stable collapse mode like a aluminum tube in which plastic hinge is developed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.208-219
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• 2000

In this study, static axial crush tests were performed with the new aluminum/GFRP hybrid tube. Glass/Epoxy prepregs were wrapped around an aluminum tube and co-cured. The failure of the hybrid tube was stable and progressive without trigger mechanism, and specific energy absorption was increased to the maximum of 33% in comparison with the aluminum tube. Effective energy absorption is possible for an inner aluminum tube because a wrapped composite tube constrains the deflection of an aluminum tube. The failure of a hybrid composite tube was stable without trigger mechanism because the inner aluminum tube could play the role of the crack initiator and controller. Mean crushing load could be calculated by modifying the plastic hinge collapse model for hybrid materials. The predicted results by this analytical model showed good agreement with the experimental results. It can be said that Aluminum/Glass-Epoxy hybrid tube is suitable for the vehicle front structure because this hybrid tube shows effective energy absorption, easy production, and simple application capability for RTM process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.168-171
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• 1999

For the axial crushing tests of various shape of tubes, it was reported that composite tubes need trigger mechanism to avoid brittle failure. In this study, static axial crush tests were performed with the new aluminum/GFRP hybrid tubes. Glass/Epoxy prepregs were wrapped around aluminum tube and co-cured. The failure of hybrid tube was stable and progressive without trigger mechanism, and specific energy absorption was increased to maximum 34% in comparison with aluminum tube. Effective energy absorption is possible for inner aluminum tube because wrapped composite tube constrain the deflection of aluminum tube and reduce the folding length. The failure of hybrid composite tube was stable without trigger mechanism because inner aluminum tube could play the role of crack initiator and controller. Aluminum/Glass-Epoxy hybrid tube is suitable for the vehicle front structure due to effective energy absorption capability, easy production, and simple application for RTM process.

• Composites Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.8-16
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• 2007

Bending collapse of light-weight square tubes used for vehicle structure components is a dominant failure mode in oblique collision and rollover of vehicles. In this paper bending performances of aluminum-GFRP hybrid tube beams were evaluated in relation with bending deformation behavior and energy absorption characteristics. Aluminum/GFRP hybrid tube beams fabricated by inserting adhesive film between prepreg and metal layer were used in the bending test. Failure mechanisms of hybrid tubes under a bending load were experimentally investigated to analyze the bending performance as a function of ply orientation and composite layer thickness. Ultimate bending moments and energy absorption capacity of hybrid tube beams were obtained from the measured load-displacement corves. It was found that aluminum/GFRP hybrid tubes could be converted to rather stable collapse mode showing excellent energy absorption capacity in comparison to the pure aluminum tube beams. In particular, the hybrid tube beam with $[0^{\circ}/90^{\circ}]s$ composite layer showed a large improvement by about 78% in energy absorption capacity and by 29% in specific energy absorption.