Behaviour analysis of fibre reinforced composite plates under medium velocity impact

Abstract

In the recent past substantial structural strength light weight and stiffness properties of polymer based composite materials find its application in aircraft and automotive structures at the prodigious rate It is well known that they are susceptible to damage resulting from lateral impact by foreign objects such as dropped tools hail and debris thrown up from the runway In order to establish the survivability of a composite structure under an impact load it is important to predict the impact behaviour of composite laminates The impact response of the structures depends not only on the material properties but also on the dynamic behaviour of the impacted structure Although commercial software is capable of analyzing such impact processes it often requires extensive expertise and rigorous training for design and analysis Analytical models are useful as they allow parametric studies and provide a foundation for validating the numerical results obtained from largescale commercial software Therefore it is necessary to develop analytical or semi analytical models to better understand the behaviour of composite structures under impact and their associated failure process The present study evaluates the ballistic limit energy absorbed and the damage area caused by different projectile nose shapes on the composite plates made of glass fibre vinyl ester resin with the orientation of 0 90S and 45 45 S The number of plies in the plates is varied to 4 6 and 8 to have different thickness The projectile nose geometry is varied to have realistic effect on the impact newline