The need for lightweight crush resistant structures has inspired researchers to conduct both experimental and numerical studies on axial crush characteristics of aluminium tubes as well as polymer matrix composite tubes. Recent experimental studies have shown that hybrid tubes containing a composite overwrap over an aluminium tube have higher energy absorption than either aluminium or composite tubes. However, the published research on hybrid tubes was limited in scope and the beneficial effect of combining composite and aluminium has not been fully investigated.; The objective of this research was to conduct a systematic numerical study on the axial crush characteristics of both square aluminium and square aluminium-composite hybrid tubes over a wide range of design parameters, such as triggering mechanism, aluminium tube thickness, overwrap thickness and fiber orientation angle in the overwrap. The numerical models were developed using LS-DYNA and validated using the experimental data available on aluminium and aluminium-composite hybrid tubes.; The parametric study involved both aluminium and aluminium-composite hybrid tubes. It was shown that the transition from symmetric to asymmetric folding pattern occurred at lower aluminium tube thickness when a composite overwrap was used on the aluminium tube. For the aluminium-composite hybrid tubes, the folding initiation force, mean crush force and energy absorbed of the hybrid tubes were significantly higher than those of the aluminium tubes. These three crush resistance parameters depended on overwrap thickness as well as fiber orientation angle. As the fiber orientation angle increased toward the loading path, the mean crush force decreased linearly.; The contribution of this research is in the development of a numerical technique for modeling quasi-static crushing aluminium-composite hybrid tubes. In addition, parametric studies were conducted using the aforementioned design parameters. Empirical equations were developed to predict the mean crush force of aluminium-composite hybrid tubes, which would be beneficial in designing crush-resistant structural members.
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