INTRODUCTION TO LOW VELOCITY

IMPACT TESTING OF COMPOSITE

MATERIALS

Name : B.J.ASHOK KUMAR

REG NO : 201614272
DEGREE : PhD (PART TIME)
 Composite materials

Study : Effect of Impactor mass on low velocity impact

test
Work Type : Experimental study
 Composite materials
• Peak force the maximum contact force between specimen
and impactor before delamination occurs.

1. Peak force increases as impact energy increases slightly for

thin specimen because delamination can occur easily due
to less stiffness.

2. Peak force increases and remains constant for thicker

specimen because it takes a lot of force value for
delamination to occur.
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•COR- ratio between difference of Eimp and ED to Eimp. ED is the energy required for damage to occur.
1. For thin specimen COR tend towards zero because of low stiffness full penetration may occur .

2. For thick specimen COR tends towards one due to high stiffness less damage.

3. Ballistic limit velocity : minimum velocity for full penetration.

4. The penetration process is divided into three stages: indentation, perforation, and exit of the projectile.

5. Indentation : A kind of surface damage made by impactor on specimen.

6. Perforation is a kind of damage after indentation which is governed by a factor called damage factor.

7. For the perforation phase, a damage factor defined as dm = Nb/Nt where Nb is the number of broken
fibers and Nt is the total number of unbroken fibers in front of the contact region is introduced P =
pmAp(1-dm) where pm is mean pressure during indentation Ap is the projected of the impactor during
indentation.

8. COR also defined as vr/vi ratio of return velocity to initial velocity. COR = 1 impact perfectly elastic. If
vr/vi = 0 laminate at verge of perforation.
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•Total time of contact
1. Total contact time between impactor and specimen.
2. As impact energy increases Total time of contact also increases
because as damage becomes larger impactor well placed with in the
specimen.
3. Thick specimen have lesser contact time when compared to thin
specimen due to higher stiffness

• Residual transverse stiffness

1. ratio between transverse stiffness of damaged specimen and intact
specimen.
2. Thin specimen have lesser residual transverse stiffness and thicker
specimen will have higher residual transverse stiffness.
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• •As the thickness of the specimen increases

1. Peak force increases because it takes a lot of force to

create delamination

2. COR increases because it takes a lot of impact energy

before delamination to occur.

3. contact duration decreases due to higher stiffness

4. Residual stiffness increases because of higher stiffness

•Peak force, COR, maximum displacement, residual stiffness

are function of impact energy alone and not impact velocity
and impact mass separately
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Three types of impact
•Free fall and Rebound
•Free fall and stop
•Free fall and perforation

•Free fall and rebound

1. Energy absorbed by the specimen not to high a rebound occurs. The curves are
shown below. Closed loop curves for Free fall and rebound
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•Free fall and stop

A stage is reached where impactor can not travel further – saturation stage
Force-displacement a open loop.
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•Free fall and perforation
materials

Force-displacement a open loop.

Perforation occurs which is nothing but impactor travelling inside the composite lamina. It has
two parts namely friction and damage. During friction force and energy increase sharply and
during damage force values drop down and energy values remains constant.
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•Four characteristic parameters
•First material damage – read from force displacement diagram where large force oscillations
takes place.
•Maximum force value - read from force displacement diagram which increases with impact
energy until first laminate failure takes place so called maximum load carrying capacity.
•Impact energy – maximum energy the specimen can transform (elastic deformation + plastic
deformation).
•Damage degree - ratio of the unrecoverable energy to impact energy.
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Study : Impact characterization of glass/epoxy composites

plates
Work Type : Experimental and numerical study
 Composite materials
•Hertizian contact law
1. Up to maximum contact force – loading
2. After maximum contact force – unloading.

• Failure mechanism for laminate composites

1. Matrix cracking criterion –plane strain condition for impact test on composite laminates.
a. interlaminar shear stress
b. in-plane tensile stress
c. out of plane normal stress
d. Major criterion - In-plane tensile for matrix cracking

2. Delamination criterion
a. Shear crack and bending crack
b. Shear crack due to interlaminar longitudinal shear stress and interlaminar transverse shear
stress
c. Bending crack due to interlaminar longitudinal shear stress and in-plane bending stress.
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• Energy absorption of specimens subjected to equal mass is lower
than specimens subjected to equal velocity.

• Effects of equal mass and equal velocity on maximum contact force

and maximum deflection are nearly same but have different contact
time.

• High mass impact cause more delaminations and contact time than
low mass impact at equal impact energy except penetration cases.
High mass impact cause earlier damage and contact forces.

• Delamination area for low mass high velocity impact is less than high
mass low velocity for same impact energy.

• For equal impact energy delamination increases upto a critical point

of 15 kg impactor mass beyond which delamination becomes smaller
due to more fiber fracture and matrix failures.
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Study : comparison between E-glass/epoxy and
carbon/epoxy.
Work Type : experimental
 Composite materials
•E-glass/epoxy composite exhibit non-linear
membrane effect leading to decreased stiffness.

•Force –time and displacement relationship

symmetrical as shown in next slide.

•Impact energy increases maximum force occurs after

greater total displacement because all force utilized
for producing displacement.

•When impact energy is 28 J sharp force reduction

due to layer damage and force-time relationship is
asymmetric.
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•Carbon/epoxy exhibit non-linear force-time and displacement relationship due to delamination and fiber
leakage in low impact energy range of 4-10J due to abrupt stiffness decrease.

•Impact energy of 6 J delamination is seen and asymmetric force-displacement relationship as shown below.

•Delamination maximizes as impact energy increases but stiffness remains constant after delamination.

•Eimp = Eel+Eab
Eel energy transferred by the specimen to the impactor which is due elastic deflection
Eab energy required to make structural damage.

•It is experimentally concluded that Elastic energy in E-glass/epoxy is approximately 1.5 times greater than
that of carbon/epoxy composites.
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Study : Low velocity Impact of woven fabric composites

Work Type : Experimental and FE simulation study
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Force – displacement diagram

• Force displacement diagram a closed loop for thickness = 2mm impactor rebounds
as force value and deflection decrease in unloading phase as shown in figure below.
Fig8a. damage made due to matrix cracks and bending of fibers leading to
diminished bending stiffness of the specimen.

• As impact energy increases peak force increases but when impact energy is 19.6 J it
leads to perforation which causes drastic decline in bending stiffness leading to
unstable behavior of plates as shown in figure 8b.

• At impact energy of 19.6J when thickness of specimen is increased to 3mm plate is

about to be perforated deflection grows during unloading phase and decreases. As
shown in fig 8c

• At a specimen thickness of 4mm the contact force at upper layer not similar to
lower layer causing a drop in contact force causing a rebound as shown in fig 11.
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figure 8a fig 8b

fig 11
fig 8c
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Force – time diagram
• Maximum force increases as impact energy increases. But after certain extent due
to bending fracture of fibers maximum force decreases.
• As plate thickness increases maximum force also increases because thicker plates
will not reach damage easily.

Fig14
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Velocity – time diagram

• When there is no perforation laminate has maximum deflection

velocity reaches zero and rebound occurs velocity grows in opposite
direction.

• At perforation impactor damages the specimen velocity does not

change sign.
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Velocity – deflection diagram

• Rebound condition: velocity maximum when deflection is maximum after this point velocity
changes in sign as shown in fig19 pg 717.

• If any perforation velocity is unidirectional.

• Initial velocity vi and return velocity vr. Ratio of vr/vi = 1 impact perfectly elastic and when
ratio vr/vi = 0 laminate is at the verge of perforation.

• Ratio of vr/vi decrases as impact energy increases.

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Study : Low velocity Impact of woven hybrid composites

Work Type : Experimental study
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Velocity – deflection diagram

• Hybrid composites exhibit grater stiffness than s2-glass/epoxy and

lesser then carbon/epoxy composites.

• By providing s2-glass fabrics on back surface of hybrid laminates

impact response can be enhanced as s2-glass fibers have higher
strain to failure and hence damage can be delayed.

• Damage tolerance can be improved by hybridization.

• Woven carbon and s2-glass fibers at top and bottom surfaces with
unidirectional carbon layers in the inside of the laminate can improve
the damage resistance and tolerance.
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Study : Low velocity Impact test on laminates

Work Type : Experimental study
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• Tension preload increases stiffness leading to reduction in deflection and contact
time for which contact force increases.

• Compression pre load reduces stiffness leading to lesser contact force and
additional bucking of fibers. Damage size increases due compressive buckling.

• Pre shear loading have largest increase in damage area when compared to
unstressed laminates.

• Pre loaded thicker plates have larger damage area when compared to thinner
plates due to transverse shear stress.

• For curved plates larger the plate curvature larger is the damage and hence
dissipated energy.

• As the plate thickness increases the amount of dissipates energy also increases.
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