UC Davis

This thesis investigates the enhancement of crashworthiness and structural integrity in Glass Laminate Aluminum Reinforced Epoxy (GLARE) channel section beams through the introduction of cross stiffeners. The ultimate goal is to improve crashworthiness, with a specific focus on the comparatively longer and gradual process of buckling and post-buckling analysis under compressive loads, rather than conducting a classical impact analysis. The study's methodology integrates a literature review with advanced numerical modeling using ABAQUS, validated by experimental benchmarking. The ABAQUS eigenbuckling and Riks analyses are meticulously validated against experimental data, achieving minimal error margins for buckling loads (3.5% - 5.2%), which are well below the allowable 10% error margin, and accurately matching failure modes. The introduction of cross stiffeners in the GLARE channel beam effectively recreates the mode shape concentrated at the mid-span of the beam, decreasing the buckling load by 39% compared to the no-stiffener configuration, potentially creating a crumple zone and maximizing energy absorption during high impact tests. Additionally, a more distributed failure pattern, controlled deformation, and a higher and longer post-buckling path are achieved, indicating improved stability and load-bearing capacity, with a 36% increase in failure load compared to the no-stiffener configuration. These findings demonstrate significant improvements in damage tolerance and provide a solid motivation for future work to test the crashworthiness of GLARE structures with cross stiffeners in aerospace applications, such as airframes and subcomponents, to better protect occupants.