Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

1. Introduction:

Laminated composites offer decisive advantages when being compared to

more traditional materials. The availability of tailoring properties in the required
direction made them accepted widely in structural applications particularly where
weight is a design-limiting factor. They have been increasingly used in load bearing
structures such as aircraft, automobile industries. However, they are liable to damage
due to low velocity impact loading during service. This impact loading can cause
extensive sub-surface damage that may not be visible on the surface but can lead to a
significant reduction in the strength of composite laminates. It can create internal
defects in the form of delamination, matrix failure and fiber breakage which yields
reduction in the residual strength and stiffness of the structure. Therefore, in recent
decades the topic has become a source of interest and concern that has promoted
intensive research.

Impacts are generally classified according to ranges from low to high-velocity

impacts. The structural response of the composites differs significantly between the
two ranges. The response of the laminate subjected to high velocity impact is
dominated by the propagation of compression waves generated in the vicinity of the
contact point and transmitted through the thickness, resulting in localized damages.
Despite the low velocity impacts are simple events, they induce complex effects,
compromising the residual bearing capacity of the structural component. Low velocity
impact induced damage is a complex mixture of three main failure modes: matrix
cracking, delamination and fiber breakage. Among them delamination has been found
to be the most severe damage mode. The situation has been proven critical even when
the damaged surface located in the contact area is not representative of the induced
damage causing a collapse under unacceptable compressive load levels. Therefore to
successfully design damage tolerant composite structures, it is necessary to have a
reliable analysis tool to aid understanding the complex phenomena that takes places
and capable of estimating the consequences of the impact.

The resistance to the impact depends on several factors of the laminate such as
inter laminar strengths, stacking sequence, impacting object size, velocity and mass of
the impactor. The dynamic behavior of the composite laminates is very complex due
to their many concurrent phenomena under impact load.

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

2. Literature survey:
[1] A.Ricco, G.Di Felice, S.Saputo, F.Scaramuzino
The response of the composite laminate configurations characterized by
different stacking sequences subjected to low velocity impacts with different impact
energies have been studied to estimate the influence on load- time, displacement –
time and energy-time histories. The inter-laminar and intra-laminar damage and
evolution has been considered for the damage modeling. ABAQUS/EXPLICIT FE
environment has been used for the analysis and cohesive elements have been
considered for the model. The Hashin failure criteria is implemented to predict the
intra-laminar damage and the inter-laminar damage between the plies has been
simulated by means of cohesive elements.

[2] M. A. Perez, X. Martinez, s. Oller, L. Gil, F.Rastellini, F.Flores

The procedure is primarily based on simulating the composite performance
using micro-mechanical approach named matrix-reinforced mixing theory, a
simplified version of the serial/parallel mixing theory. It uses continuum mechanics to
simulate the phenomenon of initiation and propagation of inter-laminar damage
without cohesive element formulation between the plies. This reduces the
computational costs.

[3] Balasubramani. V, Rajendra Boopathy.S, Vasudevan. R

A numerical investigation is performed to study the stress distribution during
the impact on the laminated plates. Various parametric studies are performed to study
the effect the effect of boundary conditions, thickness of the laminate, impactor mass
and composite layup sequence on the stress variation of the composite laminate. It is
concluded that the stresses are distributed symmetrically along the bottom and top
layers irrespective of the boundary conditions. The maximum tensile stress is yielded
at the bottom layer while the maximum compressive stress is yielded at the top layer
of the laminated composite plate. Symmetric variation in in-plane shear stress is also
observed. It is also shown that the thickness of the composite plate plays a very
important role on the deflection of the plate.

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

[4] B. Kranthi Kumar, Lakshana Kishore.T

They have done the low velocity impact analysis on fiber glass reinforced
laminates with vinylester and polyester resins. Finite element analysis program is used
to predict the stresses in the laminates during the impact. These stresses are then
compared to the damage from the drop tests. The critical stress range for impact
damage is found.

[5] Z.Y.Zang , M.O.W.Richardson

Low velocity impact induced non-penetration damage in pultruded glass fiber
reinforced polyester composite material was investigated using a falling weight test
machine with chisel shaped impactpor. The characteristics of the impact event,
force/time and force/deflection traces were determined. The post impact structural
integrity of impacted specimen was evaluated by three point bending test. It reveals
that there is a significant reduction in flexural properties due to the impact induced
Damage and it is concluded that residual flexural strength is more susceptible to
damage than residual modulus.

[6] Periyasamy Manikandan, Gin Boay Chai

This paper presents an extensive study on the experimental and numerical
investigation of hybrid interplay composite with 0.5 mm thickness aluminum metal
layer with cross plied plain weave glass/epoxy composite prepreg of 0.254 mm
thickness subjected to low velocity impact. Test specimens were fabricated with a
layer of metal bonded to layer of composite. The impact test is conducted in two ways
one is impact conducted on the ductile metal layer and the other one impact conducted
on the brittle composite layer. It is found that brittle side impact samples are found to
provide excellent impact resistance than ductile side damage.

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

[7] W. Hufenbach , F.Marques Ibraim, A.Langkamp, R.Bohm A. Hornig

This paper deals with the experimental investigation of carbon reinforced
composites under low velocity impact and its numerical modeling with an orthotropic
continuous damage based material approach. Experimental investigations in a charpy
test rigs were conducted in order to identify key parameters influencing the damage
resistance of composite structures. A mixture of stiff UD reinforcement at the core
and tougher fabric lay-ups as protective layers has been studied. It is found that
addition of metallic layers would enhance impact damage tolerance.

[8] H. Ghasemnejad, A.S.M. Furquan, P.J. Mason

The effect of hybrid laminate layup with different delamination positions for
composite beam is investigated. The charpy impact test was chosen to study the
energy absorbing capability of delaminated composite beam. Hybrid composite beam
were fabricated from combination of glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy composites. It
was found that the composite beam with closer position of delamination to impacted
structure is able to absorb more energy in comparison with other delamination
positions in hybrid and non-hybrid ones. In single delaminated hybrid composite
beams the laminate design of [G0/C90]3 absorbed the highest impact energy in defect
positions between layers 4/5 and 5/6. In multi-delaminated composite beams the beam
with laminate design of [G0/C90]3 absorbed the highest amount of impact energy.

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

3. Problem Formulation:

The problem is to characterize the damage occurred to fiber reinforced

laminates subjected to low velocity, high mass impact. This subject is a crucial design
question that appears frequently in the design of new composite products. It is also
required to understand the effect of ply stacking sequence and effect of Ply thickness.

4. Objectives:

To understand the aspects involved in

 Fabrication of composites
 Phenomena of Impact
 Finite Element Analysis of Composites
 Effect of thickness of laminate
 Effect of stacking sequence of laminate

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

5. Methodology/Planning of work:

Detail Study of Impact Phenomena

Analytical Calculations

Experimental Method Numerical Method

Specimen Preparation Modeling of Material

Charpy Test/ Drop weight Finite Element Analysis

Tower Test

Data Processing Data Processing

Comparison and
Validation

Result

Finish

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 Low Velocity Impact Behaviour and Modelling of FRP Composites

6. Facilities Required:
 Charpy Test/ Drop weight tower test facility
 Computing facility for Finite Element Simulation

Reference:

[1] A.Ricco, G.Di Felice, S.Saputo, F.Scaramuzino “Stacking sequence

effects on damage onset in composite laminate subjected to low
velocity impact”.
[2] M. A. Perez, X. Martinez, s. Oller, L. Gil, F.Rastellini, F.Flores
“Impact damage prediction in carbon fiber-reinforced laminated
composite using the matrix-reinforced mixing theory”.
[3] Balasubramani. V, Rajendra Boopathy.S, Vasudevan. R “Numerical
Analysis of Low Velocity Impact on Laminated Composite Plates”.
[4] B. Kranthi Kumar, Lakshana Kishore.T “Low velocity impact analysis
of laminated FRP composites”.
[5] Z.Y.Zang , M.O.W.Richardson “Low velocity impact induced damage
evaluation and its effect on the residual flexural properties of pultruded
GRP composites”.
[6] Periyasamy Manikandan, Gin Boay Chai “A layer-wise behavioral
study of metal based interply hybrid composites under low velocity
impact load”
[7] W. Hufenbach , F.Marques Ibraim, A.Langkamp, R.Bohm A. Hornig
“Charpy impact tests on composite structures – An experimental
and numerical investigation”.
[8] H. Ghasemnejad, A.S.M. Furquan, P.J. Mason “Charpy impact damage
behaviour of single and multi-delaminated hybrid
composite beam structures”

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