An experimental investigation into crushing behaviour of filament-wound laminated cone¯cone intersection composite shell

This paper presents the effect of cone vertex angle on the crushing behaviour, energy absorption, failure mechanism and failure mode of filament-wound laminated (FWL) cone¯cone intersection composite shell. The static crushing behaviour of FWL cone¯cone intersection composite shell under uniform axial load is investigated experimentally. Two types of composites were tested, namely, carbon fibre/epoxy and glass fibre/epoxy. The cones vertex angles tested are 10°, 15°, 20° and 25°. Failure modes were examined using the photographs taken during crushing the specimens. The results showed that the initial failure was dominated by interfacial and shear failure, while the delamination and eventually fibre fracture dominated the failure mechanism after the initial first failure. The results also showed that the structure with vertex angles 20° and 25° exhibited good energy absorption capability. The volume reduction is obtained and found to be significant for these sets of angles.