Hybrid Metal/Composite Structures Under Quasi-static Axial Compression Loads: A Comparative Study

This research presents an experimental examination of the crashworthiness performance and the crush history of hybrid constructions made of metal and composite materials. The metallic part is aluminum alloy (Al6063), while the composite part is carbon (C) and E-glass (G) textiles reinforced with epoxy. The hand lay-up technique of wet wrapping was used to fabricate the specimens, which were then tested under quasi-static axial compression pressure. Two groups of hybrid structures were fabricated: the first group is glass fiber reinforced epoxy (GFRE) overwrapped Al6063 tubes, whereas the second group is the hybridization between carbon fiber reinforced epoxy (CFRE) and GFRE-overwrapped Al6063 tubes. A number of crashworthiness indicators were evaluated for the suggested tubes, including the initial peak force (F_ip), total absorbed energy (AE), mean crush force (F_m), specific absorbed energy (SEA), and crush force efficiency (CFE). The experimental results exhibited that for group one, the Al6063/8G tube has the maximum F_ip,F_m, AE, and CFE with values of 77.54 kN, 47.87 kN, 3350.99 J, and 0.62, respectively, while the Al6063 tube shows the maximum SEA with a value of 44.63 J/g. Furthermore, the Al6063/4G/4C tube in group two displays values of, respectively, 120.44 kN, 81.56 kN, 5709.41 J, 59.74 J/g, and 0.68 the extreme for F_ip,F_m, AE, SEA, and CFE.