In this report presented the investigation of axial progressive compression on sandwich composite cylinder made from basalt fibre reinforced composite tube as skins and polyurethane (EPU) foam as core of the structure. The effect of braid orientation angle of the sandwich skins and foam core thickness were evaluated on the parameter performance namely peak force, average force, total energy absorption, crush force efficiency, and specific energy absorption. The primary failure mode observed was progressive failure fibre cracking and tube’s wall folding and crumping. Experiment result showed that the effect of outer wall braid angle of sandwich tube structure was the dominant factor contributed to high energy absorption capacity. Furthermore, the foam thickness has no significant influences on the SEA value; however, the total diameter size of sandwich tube skins was.
A systematic testing procedure has been employed to investigate the high temperature oxidation kinetics of AISI 316L. Thermo-gravimetric (TG) analysis was carried out at 950°C, 1050°C, 1150°C and 1250°C for 8h. Alongside this, isothermal furnace treatments were carried out on samples of the same material at the same temperatures for time periods of 0.5h, 1h, 2h, 4h and 8h. Changes in oxidation kinetics were observed on mass gain curves plotted from data derived from the TG analysis. When a change in oxidation kinetics was identified, the structure, thickness and composition of the oxides formed on the isothermal treatment samples at time periods before and after the change occurred could be studied. It was found that this systematic testing procedure provided a great deal of useful information allowing more meaningful conclusions to be made on the influence of oxide layer thickness, structure and composition on high temperature oxidation kinetics.
