Effect of trigger mechanisms on the quasi-static axial crushing behavior of glass epoxy/polyvinyl chloride hybrid composite tubes

This paper investigates the effect of trigger mechanisms on the crashworthiness parameters of glass epoxy/ polyvinyl chloride hybrid composite tubes. Quasi-static axial compression tests are conducted to determine these parameters for composite tubes with nine different specimen configurations. These configurations include; specimens with no triggers, specimens with three distinct chamfer triggers, and specimens with five different double-step triggers, respectively. The double-step trigger is a novel trigger mechanism introduced in this study. The specimen tubes were fabricated using a five-axis filament winding machine. The results showed that both trigger mechanisms could significantly improve the crashworthiness performance of the tested hybrid composite tubes. Additionally, the performance of the double-step trigger surpassed that of the conventionally used chamfer trigger. Overall, the DST7.5 specimen configuration exhibited the best performance of all the tested samples. The initial peak force of this specimen configuration was about 43.8% less, its crush force efficiency approximately 92.3% more, and its SEA about 28.1% higher than that of the non-trigger specimen configuration.