Energy absorption of variable stiffness composite thin-walled tubes on axial impacting

In order to realize the engineering application of automated fiber placement for composite laminates, a method of the variable angle fiber placement was proposed to design the tube structures of variable stiffness composites based on the quadratic Bezier curve. The axial crushing responses were simulated to investigate the energy absorption characteristics of composite tubes. The results showed that the method of the variable angle fiber placement contributed to the improvement of the energy absorption effects. The maximum crushing force efficiency of the variable stiffness composite thin-walled tubes designed by the method was 49.04% which was 106.48% higher than the constant stiffness composite tube. The results could be helpful for the process of automated fiber placement and the design of the energy absorption for composite thin-walled structures.