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The effect of the number of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CRFP) layers on the axial crushing capacity of aluminum–CFRP square hybrid tubes was investigated both experimentally and numerically. Increasing the number of CRFP layers led to more collapsed lobes and decreased collapsed lobe widths, resulting in an improvement of the energy absorption capacity. The simulation results revealed a distinct tube wall collapse mode in the 4-layer hybrid tubes. The higher bending stiffness of the composite layers in the 4-layer hybrid tube led to debonding of the interface between the aluminum and composite layers. After interface failure, the composite layers did not collapse following the aluminum tube wall and instead rebounded in the approximate longitudinal direction, which directly suffering the longitudinal crushing loading. This behavior led to the shortened plastic collapse width and improvement of the single-layer CFRP energy dissipation due to CFRP delamination. • The effect of CFRP layer number on single-layer CFRP energy absorption was explored. • Different wall collapse mode appeared as CFRP layer number increases. • The increase of CFRP layer number led to decrease of collapse lobe width. • The decrease of collapse lobe width would improve the single-layer CFRP energy absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]