Associate Professor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia

Biography: Dr Mohd Yazid Yahya is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and got a PhD in Composite Structure from the University of Liverpool. He is the Director of Centre for Composite, being specialist in Composite Structure, pressure vessels, Impact and blast loading and interlaminar fracture toughness.

Speech Title: Axial Crushing Behaviour of Thin-walled Braided Composite Tube: Experimental Comparison on Basalt and Glass Fibre Reinforced Composite
Aims: The collapse performance and energy absorption of thin-walled tube of basalt/ epoxy and glass/epoxy subjected to axial quasi-static and dynamic impact crushing were investigated. The effects of braid orientation, fibre materials, and different loading rate focusing on crushing characteristics were discussed.

Methods: A series of thin-walled composite tubes with different braid angles and fibre materials were fabricated using braided basalt reinforced epoxy matrix and braided glass reinforced epoxy matrix. The axial crushing tests of the thin-walled tubes under quasi-static and impact loads were carried out.

Results: Based on results, basalt composite tube has greater energy absorption capacity than glass composite tube. The energy absorption capability in impact crushing tests could be found to be higher than that in quasi-static crushing tests but lower crush load efficiency capability. All specimens exhibited progressive failure process at the quasi-static speed of 10 mm/min and dynamic crushing speed of 5 m/s. The images from the crush zone showed specimens with braid angle of ±30° to ±60° deformed in two distinct crushing modes.

Conclusions: Experimental results showed that the effect of braid angle and fibre/matrix material was proved to have a great influence on the energy absorption performance.