Experimental investigation on the compression-after-double-impact behaviors of GF/epoxy laminates embedded with/without metal wire nets

Abstract

This work investigated the effect of embedded metal wire nets on both double-point low-velocity impact (LVI) and compression-after-double-impact (CAI) behaviors of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminates. The once-forming conventional GFRP laminates with metal wire nets are manufactured by the vacuum-assisted resin infusion (VARI) process. A novel fixture is designed to conduct the double-point LVI experiment with a different impact distance. The results, including impact response history and failure morphology, demonstrate that adding wire nets can improve the impact-resistance capacity of GFRP by dispersing the incident energy from the impact center to the outer region. Under the impact distance of 20 mm and impact energy of 60 J, the energy absorption rate of the wire net-hybrid laminates is 19.18% lower than that of the pure GFRP laminates. According to the scanning electron microscope (SEM), the damage on hybrid laminates is concentrated near the metal mesh, leading to a more extensive damage area. In the CAI tests, the performance of hybrid laminates is poorer than that of conventional GFRP under the condition of both high incident energy and distance.