Experimental studies on the impact characteristics of seamless fibre metal laminate (FML) tubes

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the energy absorption and impact characteristics a new tubular and seamless type of Fibre Metal Laminate (FML) fabricated from braided fibreglass sleeve and aluminium alloy tubes. Aluminium tubes was precisely machined to specific thickness then chemically treated to improve the adhesive bonding. Sleeve type braided fibreglass was selected as it comes in specific dimension and more importantly, it is seamless and produces an excellent composite tube. Tubes carefully assembled to form 2/1 and 3/2 layup configurations and highly adhesive resin was introduced as interlayer, which is composed of two layers of aluminium tubes and one layer of glass fibre braided sleeve in between for 2/1 layup. The new designed tubes were tested together with aluminium bare tubes with identical mass and inner dimension to 2/1 tube to evaluate the behaviour and impact characteristics under low velocity axial impact loading. This tube crushed progressively and unlikely to fail under catastrophic failure. The results also indicate that the mechanical performance of a new FML tube have a good potential to be applied as a new and efficient energy absorber.