Abstract: In the report， aimed at improving the poor performance of transverse impact resistance of carbon fiber reinforced polymer （CFRP） rod， the pendulum impact tests were conducted on four different steel wire volume contents and protection types of steel wire CFRP composite rods， the scanning electron microscopy was used to analyze their damage morphology characteristics. The results showed that the transverse impact resistance ability can be notably improved by embedding the high strength steel wire into the CFRP rod to form the composite rod， and the absorbed energy of the rod linearly increase with the volume ratio of steel wire， the average absorbed energy is improved by 41.97% with the steel wire volume ratio of 30.3% compared to the conventional CFRP rod. The transverse impact resistance ability of composite rod can be obviously improved by the wall thickness and inner radius of polyvinyl chloride （PVC） protection pipe tube. The damage form of the steel wire CFRP composite rod is compression damage， and which is caused by the impact of the hammer on the carbon fiber， many shorter fibers are formed， the steel wire undergoes bending deformation， however， which is not completely broken. The bending deformation of the steel wire may absorb some impact energy.