Investigation of Impact Energy Absorption and Damage in Woven Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite materials

Abstract

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites offer a unique combination of in-plane specific strength and stiffness. They, however, suffer from a relatively poor out-of plane performance. Improving this requires a thorough understanding of their behavior to out-of-plane loadings such as impact. Their impact response is very complex in nature due to their strain-rate dependent properties, progressive damage during impact, and their many failure modes such as delamination, fiber or matrix failure, and fiber crush. In this work, response of plain woven CFRP laminates are studied via experiments and numerical simulations using the finite element package LS-DYNA. Quasi-static and dynamic tests were conducted to provide the materials parameters for the material model; MAT162. Once the simulations were validated, the response of the CFRP to impact was investigated in terms of different material properties, energy absorption, and damage modes. Based on these results strategies are suggested to improve the behavior of CFRPs under impact loadings.