The energy absorption capability of thin-walled composite cylindrical shells is experimentally investigated. Effects of six parameters on absorption energy of composite shells are studied. These parameters including three geometric parameters of inner diameter, length and shell thickness and the other three parameters are layer orientation, reinforcing fibers and manufacturing process. The design of experiment was accomplished by applying Taguchi method and the axial crushing test was conducted on shells. The resulting data was statistically analyzed which led to the ranking of the six parameters and an optimized structure based on the selected parameters was proposed. Finally, different kinds of complicated failure modes controlling absorption capacity were studied. In addition, effects of the six mentioned parameters on both stable and unstable crushing modes of shells were investigated. It is found that a good correspondence exists between statistical analysis results and crushing collapse mechanisms in experimental analysis results, which both of the analysis are accorded to specific energy absorption.

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