Despite years of governmental and academic institutions’ researches, no experimental standards are established for evaluating crush Specific Energy Absorption SEA for plain weave fabric woven carbon-fiber-reinforced composites used in modern aircraft structures as elements of the boxes to mitigate damage during crush events. At the laboratory scale, this paper proposes a comparative study of energy absorption capability of flat plate coupons made by CFRP plain weave fabric composites. A new fixture design and setup were created with hydraulic pressure and drop tower machines to carry out tests of flat plate composite specimens under quasi-static and low velocity on-axis crash loading. For investigating parameters sensibility of triggers and layups, numerical and experimental results of four trigger types and three stacking sequences were compared. A confrontation between experimental and pre-developed UL-Crush numerical material model results confirms that coupons with 0˚ oriented central plies and saw teeth or corrugated triggers dissipates higher energy during crush, compared to coupons with 90˚ or 45˚ oriented central plies and chamfer 45˚ or steeple triggers. An efficient and simplified experimental methodology was developed to measure and investigate different parameters influencing SEA of composites under crush load. Comparison between experimental and UL-Crush material model confirms the performance of such simulation tool.
KeywordsCrush BehaviorTriggersDamage and Failure MechanismsCrashworthinessSEA
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