Citation

Dehn A, Huisman MRS, Maier M. Int. J. Crashworthiness 1999; 4(3): 317-326.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity influence both mechanical material properties and crash behaviour of composite structures in service. This paper investigates the effect of temperature on the crash behaviour of tubes made of polyamide 12 reinforced with twill 1/3 glass fibre textile. These composite tubes, manufactured from two hat shaped half-tubes welded together. were impact tested at temperatures between -30 degrees C and 90 degrees C using a 45 kg impactor mass released at an average velocity of 10 m/s. Crash characteristics such as mean force and specific absorbed energy arc shown to decrease significantly with rising temperature. The specific absorbed energy dropped almost linearly with respect to temperature changes. The main observed failure mode of the impacted tubes is lamina bending. Furthermore, material samples were tested under three-point-flexural tests employing similar temperature conditions in order to understand the temperature dependency phenomenon. The results were then checked for correlation between crash characteristics and flexural strength. Both crash tests and flexural tests show similar behaviour in relation to the temperature.

Language: en