Radial compression performance of glass fiber reinforced polyurethane composite tube with open-hole

Glass fiber reinforced polyurethane matrix composite (GFRP) is a novel composite material. GFRP circular tubes are widely used in engineering because of its excellent mechanical properties. It is inevitable to open holes on GFRP circular tubes when connecting with other components due to the use requirements and structural needs. The radial compression test, theoretical analysis, and finite element calculation of GFRP circular tubes produced by the braiding-winding-pultrusion process are carried out, to study the influence of holes on the compression performance of tubes. The GFRP circular tube has four layers with different fiber angles. From the inner to the outer structure layer, they are the inner woven layer, winding layer, longitudinal fiber layer, and outer woven layer. The mechanical properties of a 0 degrees unidirectional plate are better than those of a 90 degrees unidirectional plate according to the mechanical properties test. The radial compression tests are carried out on GFRP circular tubes with a length of 300 mm, an outer diameter of 140 mm, and a wall thickness of 6 mm. The theoretical calculation of the bearing capacity of the GFRP circular tube under the radial compression load in the elastic stage and the failure stage is well matched with the bearing capacity obtained from the test. The theoretical calculation can effectively predict the bearing capacity of the GFRP circular tube. The radial compression test of GFRP tubes is simulated by ABAQUS, which is a finite element software. The good agreement between the finite element calculation results and the test results verifies the feasibility of the finite element. Based on the above research, finite element models are established for different types of GFRP circular tubes to study the influence of opening ratio on the load borne by GFRP circular tubes. The results show that the hole with the opening rate less than or equal to 1/10 has little effect on the load of the GFRP circular tube. This paper studies the influence of opening on the radial compression properties of GFRP tubes, which has certain reference value for the opening of composite tubes in engineering.