| Composites have been gaining popularity for civil and military applications. Studies are being carried out to improve their ability to absorb energy because of their inherent brittleness. Bistable structures are a material-based mechanism with the potential of high energy absorption. They consist of a main link (part designed to break first) and waiting link (part designed to transfer the load to other parts of the structure). Because of the interaction of these two parts, the bistable structure exhibits controlled failure, which provides a fail-safe structure.;This research involves developing, designing, and testing hybrid bistable structures (composed of two different materials) with higher energy absorption with respect to their baseline. Specimens were made using an established low-cost composite manufacturing technique (e.g. VARTM), and were tested under static tensile axial loading. This research focuses on the design, development, and results of the physical/experimental composite hybrid bistable structure and the development of a finite element analysis model, which had the scope of validating the experimental results and be used as a tool for designing a hybrid bistable structure.;It was found through this research that a hybrid bistable configuration of 1 layer of Plain Weave Carbon T-300 for the main link and 2 layers of Plain Weave Honeywell Spectra 900 provided higher energy absorption than its baseline. Furthermore, we were able to obtain a bistable effect of a bilithic (meant as a panel made with two materials without the presence of the core). This was achieved through the so-called fragmentation phenomenon, which affects the behavior of hybrid composites, as will be discussed in the thesis. |
