EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF POST-BUCKLING BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE COLUMN WITH TOP-HAT CROSS-SECTION

The object of this study is a thin-walled beam made of carbon-epoxy composite with open cross-section. The material used was a composite of epoxy matrix reinforced with carbon fiber (system HexPly M12, Hexcel). The M12 system is used above all in aircraft structures. It exhibits high fatigue durability and good maintenance properties at relatively low specific gravity. The research was lead as the FEM numerical analyses and experimental tests in buckling and post-buckling state, as well. In the conducted research in order to evaluate the effort ratio of the composite the Tsai-Wu tensor criterion was exploited. The numerical tool used was the ABAQUS software.