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Fibre-reinforced composite materials such as carbon, low and intermediate incident energies, metals absorb
glass and Kevlar ~ fibre-reinforced plastics are finding energy through elastic and plastic deformation 1.
increasing use in a wide range of both low and high Although the latter may cause some permanent struc-
technology engineering applications. Composites offer tural deformation, its consequences on the load-
a number of distinct advantages over more conven- carrying capability of the component are usually
tional engineering materials such as aluminium and small 11. At high incident impact energies target perfo-
steel. These include higher specific strengths and ration may occur and the passage of the impactor will
stiffnesses, superior corrosion resistance as well as generally result in petalling, cracking and spalling 12.
improved fatigue properties. Coupled with these Although such damage will degrade the load-bearing
improvements in general overall performance is the ability of the structure, its effects can generally be
fact that the cost of manufacturing components from predicted using fracture mechanics principles t2. In
fibre-reinforced plastic is often less than with more composites, however, the ability to undergo plastic
conventional metals. This is true not only at the low- deformation is extremely limited with the result that
cost end of the market occupied by sheet moulding energy is frequently absorbed in creating large areas of
compounds (SMC) but also in the aerospace sector fracture with ensuing reductions in both strength and
where complex load-bearing shapes can be produced in stiffness 1.13. Furthermore, the prediction of the post-
a limited number of steps, saving time in both joining impact load-bearing capability of a damaged composite
and assembly. structure is more difficult than for metals since the
damage zone is generally complex in nature and
Composite materials do, however, suffer some serious consequently very difficult to characterize 12. The
limitations. Perhaps the most significant amongst these problem is further complicated by the lack of existing
is their response to localized impact loading such as standards or established testing techniques for impact
that imparted by a dropped tool or runway debris. In
of composite materials. Much of the work published in
recent years many research programmes have been the literature has been conducted on purpose-built
undertaken in an attempt to better understand the
impact response of these materials 1-9. The majority of machines using convenient specimen geometries. As a
result, direct comparisons between different material
this work has been undertaken on continuous fibre,
systems is often very difficult and immediate conclu-
high performance composites since these materials are
sions are sometimes hard to draw.
finding increasing use in the design of a large number of
civil and military aircraft, i.e., in circumstances where The objective of this article is to draw together the
the consequences of impact are likely to be most pertinent findings of many of the articles published in
serious. the field of impact of fibre-reinforced composites and
The manner in which composite materials respond to thereby present a global view of the state-of-the-art.
impact loading and dissipate the incident kinetic energy Initially, the paper will review briefly the techniques
of the projectile is very different to that of metals. For most frequently employed for assessing the impact
0010-4361/91/050347-16(~) 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
COMPOSITES. VOLUME 22. NUMBER 5. SEPTEMBER1991 347
response of composite materials. Following this, the
effect of varying fundamental parameters such as fibre
and matrix properties and stacking sequence on the Weig
dynamic response of these materials will be considered. Specimen
Since a substantial amount of the work published in the
literature relates to tests on carbon fibre composites,
the main focus of this report will be on this material. Notch ~I/-- ~pactor Inertiabar
However, work undertaken on other materials will be
used in order to supplement and substantiate ideas and
theories.
Straingauge--I [
IMPACT TEST TECHNIOUESFOR COMPOSITE
MATERIALS
Ideally, the impact test fixture should be designed to Specimen
simulate the loading conditions to which a composite
component is subject in operational service and then
reproduce the failure modes and mechanisms likely to
occur. In simple terms, the impact problem can be
divided into two separate conditions: low velocity
impact by a large mass (dropped tool) and high velocity
Specimen [ __
Notch
~ or
/I
Straingauges
impact by a small mass (runway debris, small arms fire,
etc.). The former is generally simulated using a falling
weight or a swinging pendulum and the latter using a
gas gun or some other ballistic launcher. However, as
stated previously, due to a lack of experimental stan-
dards a wide variety of testing techniques is presently
oe'P"tar
being employed in order to assess the dynamic
response of reinforced plastics 1-4, 14-17, making direct b e
comparison difficult.
In this section the more commonly used techniques will
be presented and discussed as well as the problems
associated with the ensuing data analysis.
1. Charpy pendulum
Many of the early impact studies on composite materi- Fig. 1 (a) Charpy impact test; (b) Izod impact test; (c) tensile
als were undertaken using the Charpy test method Hopkinson-bar test; (d) gas gun
originally developed for testing metals 11'1s'19. The
reason for this choice was the fact that the Charpy The test set-up suffers a number of disadvantages such
pendulum is both simple to use and can be instru- as the fact that the load/time curves often contain high
mented, and therefore, in principle, can yield informa- frequency harmonic oscillations resulting from the
tion on the processes of energy absorption and dissipa- natural response of the impactor, etc. These effects can
tion in composites. The test specimen is generally a generally be filtered once the harmonic frequencies of
thick beam, sometimes incorporating a notch at its mid the various components have been determined 2. As
point as shown in Fig. l(a). The specimen is supported stated previously, the test specimen is a short, thick
in a horizontal plane and impacted by the swinging beam and is not therefore typical of engineering
pendulum directly opposite the notch. The energy components. Further, the test is destructive, inducing
dissipated during impact is usually recorded by a dial failure modes that are not necessarily observed under
on the test apparatus. Further information can be low velocity impact loading on operational structures.
obtained by instrumenting the impactor with a strain Bader and Ellis.21 showed that the Charpy energy of
gauge, thereby enabling the determination of the carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) varied with
variation of the impact force with time. The energy specimen geometry and doubt, therefore, the applica-
absorbed during impact can also be determined by bility of the technique. The Charpy test is only suitable
integrating the force/time signal. for ranking the impact performance of continuous fibre
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0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 0 I 1 I I I
Neat resin flexural strain to failure (%) 0 100 200 300 400 500
Residual compression strength after impact (MPa)
Fig. 4 Variation of residual compressive strength of impact-
damaged composites with neat resin flexural failure strain Fig. 6 Variation of residual compression strength after impact
(Ref 57) with Mode I strain energy release rate (Ref 56)
356 C O M P O S I T E S . S E P T E M B E R 1991
the contact stress field. This is shown in Fig. 13. This The impact resistance of carbon fibre composites can
curve clarifies Dorey's sl claim that increasing the be enhanced considerably by incorporating plies of
flexural stiffness of a target, for example, by placing lower modulus fibres 16,s6-s8. In order to assure compat-
fibres on the surface of a laminate, can enhance its ibility, the matrix resin is usually the same in the two or
impact resistance. This is true for the range of stiff- more constituent materials. Hancox and Wellsa7
nesses where initial failure occurs at the top surface of showed that the Izod impact energy of an HT-S carbon
the component. In more flexible targets, however, fibre composite could be increased by 500% through
reducing the flexural stiffness may precipitate failure at hybridization with E-glass fibres. As well as reducing
a lower incident energy. the basic price of the composite, the addition of the
glass fibres was found to change the mode of fracture
A detailed study by Hong and Liu 6 identified funda- from a clean break to a delamination-type non-
mental aspects in the development of damage in glass catastrophic failure Similar conclusions were drawn by
fibre-reinforced plastic (GFRP) subjected to high Helfinstine 16following Charpy impact tests on Kevlar-
velocity impact loading. They showed that increasing T300 carbon fibre hybrids. However, the absolute
the angle q in a (~,q,0~) laminate resulted in greater magnitude of the increases was less impressive than
delamination-type damage for a given incident energy, that reported by the previous workers for GFRP.
Fig. 14. Increasing q in this way also had the effect of
reducing the first damage threshold energy. The Dorey e t al. ~ assessed the high velocity impact
authors als0 showed that for a given energy, increasing response of a number carbon-Kevlar hybrid laminates.
the thickness of the GFRP target resulted in an increase They showed that the addition of the lower modulus
in delaminated area. This increase in damage area may Kevlar fibres increased the threshold energy for the
result from the reduction in the target's energy absorb- onset of damage by up to four times.
ing capability as proposed by DoreySL Lius4 extended At present many workers are assessing the feasibility of
this work by developing a simple model for predicting using weaving and braiding techniques in order to
the likely delamination sites in a number of different improve the damage tolerance of fibre-reinforced
composites. It was suggested that delamination in polymer composites s9-93. Su 93 conducted Mode I
multi-angle composites is more likely to occur at delamination tests on both stitched and non-stitched
interfaces where the mismatch in bending stiffness is AS4 carbon fibre/J1 (a semi-crystalline thermoplastic).
greatest, for example, between +/--45 plies. Liu His results showed that stitching with Kevlar fibre
showed experimentally that the level of delamination in resulted in a 100% increase in interlaminar fracture
a glass/epoxy composite increased as angle q in a (0,q) toughness. Instrumented drop-weight impact tests on a
laminate increased, i.e., as the bending stiffness number of 2- and 3-D composites indicated that the
mismatch increased This evidence suggests that if latter offered a superior impact resistance, the presence
delamination needs to be suppressed, laminates with of the third dimension reinforcement served to inhibit
sudden large changes in fibre direction should be the propagation of delaminated zones. Fabricating 3-D
avoided. structures is clearly more expensive and time consum-
Other techniques to reduce impact-induced delamina- ing than constructing with conventional 2-D prepregs.
tion include the use of woven fabrics46"85, In order to reduce these costs, it has been proposed
hybridization 16'a6-88 (for example, carbon fibres with that a selective procedure be adopted, that is, 3-D
Kevlar fibres) and three-dimensional stitchings9'9. The reinforcement be used at critical ply interfaces or at
first of these techniques involves replacing the unidirec- component edges 93.
tional +/-45 plies in a multidirectional composite by a
+/-45 woven fabric. The three-dimensional nature of
the fabric helps suppress the formation of delaminated 1. Effect of fibre stacking sequence on
zones at this critical interface. post-impact residua/ strength
In this section the role that the fibre stacking sequence
plays in determining the residual properties of impact-
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damaged composites is discussed As outlined above,
much of the work published in the literature concerns
the residual compressive properties of damaged
composites since this is considered to be the most
critical form of loading condition Certain conflicts may
oo
++0~]
exist, however, when considering the optimum fibre
20 stackin.8 sequence for residual compressive strength.
15
DoreyTM suggested that for improved impact resistance
+(
the +/--45 fibres should be located on the outermost
r~ 10 O surface of the composite. This may not be an ideal
+ lid
stacking sequence for stability in compression Here,
stiffer laminates, for example, those with surface 0
C3
fibres, are better suited to in-plane compressive
63
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 loading. Nevertheless, Morton and Godwin have
Impact energy (J) shown that an APC2 ( ~ , +/-45)2s laminate offers
Fig. 14 D e l a m i n a t e d area vs. i m p a c t energy for i m p a c t e d
inferior properties to those of a (+/-45,~,+/--45,0)s
(0s*,05",05") GFRP l a m i n a t e s (Ref 6) plate, Fig. 15.
n D Length = 75 mm Length = 75 mm
and structure is less important. Here, the magnitude of
the energy dissipated in mechanisms such as delamina-
tion, debonding and pull-out may become important.
In recent years more and more attention has been given
to determining the rate dependence of the ultimate
properties of composites and their
constituentsz~'24`26'28,~-gs. Harding and
co-workers25'27'2s'96 have examined the strain rate
sensitivity of Kevlar, GFRP and C'FRP. They have shown
that carbon fibre composites are rate-insensitive when
Length = 100 mm Length = 100 mm tested in fibre-dominated modes, whereas GFm' and
Kevlar composites exhibit a distinct rate-dependent
U U
behaviour with modulus and tensile strength increasing
with rate. Other workers have assessed the rate depen-
dence of matrix-dominated modes of failure such as
interlaminar fracture23'99. Such tests are particularly
useful since delamination (a matrix-dominated mode of
Length = 150 mm Length = 150 mm failure) is particularly detrimental to the compressive
Fig, 17 Effect of beam l e n g t h o n d a m a g e d e v e l o p m e n t in a strength of a laminated composite ~'11. DCB tests on
16-ply (0,+1-45 ) CFRP composite subjected t o h i g h v e l o c i t y carbon fibre/epoxy composites t2 have shown that the
i m p a c t l o a d i n g (Ref 29) Mode I interlaminar toughness does not vary with
strain rate, Fig. 18. Similar tests on carbon fibre/PEEK
(APC2), a thermoplastic matrix composite, have
the flanges were either too stiff or too flexible. This is
identified a distinct rate dependence :3, Fig. 18. Over a
clearly related to the structural stiffness effects shown
wide range of strain rates the Mode I fracture tough-
previously in Fig. 13. For optimum impact resistance a
ness remains invariant of strain rate. However, beyond
compromise is again required.
a certain threshold, the toughness drops dramatically to
approximately 20% of its original value. This gives
2. Conclusions cause for concern, suggesting that the impact resistance
of this material may be poor at high rates of strain.
In order to design components and structures for
Indeed, high velocity impact tests on APC2 have
impact resistance, geometrical effects need to be fully
suggested that beyond a certain threshold velocity a
understood. In the case of low velocity impact loading,
change in failure mode o c c u r s 63 and the material
the size of the specimen or component is a critical
parameter in determining its dynamic response. Here experiences a sudden drop in mechanical perfor-
mance59.
again the response of the target as well as the amount
of damage incurred is related to the target's ability to
store energy elastically. As a result of the lower level of 5O00
transverse constraint, beams tend to be capable of CF/PEEK D Unstable
absorbing more energy than larger structures such as 4000 Stable
circular plates. Care has to be taken, therefore, when
using simple beam-like specimens to evaluate the CF/epoxy
E"
dynamic response of more complex structures. I
E
3000 ,
ca
D= o
ta Q o
mo o o []
o o oo o o o oo oo
High velocity impact loading by a light projectile o o o o o o o o
full-scale structure.
10-6 10-s 10-4 10-3 10-2 10-1 10 o
(s -~ )
Rate
Fig. 18 Variation o f Gic w i t h s t r a i n rate f o r c a r b o n fibre/PEEK
The rate at which the structure is loaded affects both and a carbon fibre/epoxy composite (Refs 24 a n d 102)