Finite element analysis on impact response and damage mechanism of composite laminates under single and repeated low-velocity impact

Abstract

Aerospace composite structures are subjected to not only single but also repeated low-velocity impact during service conditions. In this paper, the dynamic mechanical response and damage mechanism characterization of composite laminates under single and repeated low-velocity impact are investigated numerically by considering the thickness effect. A progressive damage finite element model is developed in ABAQUS with the help of a user-defined material subroutine. The Hou failure criteria are applied to simulate the intra-layer damage, while the cohesive zone model is adopted to describe the inter-layer damage. The validated model is used to study the effect of thickness. The composite plates with three kinds of thickness are analyzed and discussed in terms of contact force, central displacement, energy absorption and internal damage in detail. The numerical results indicate that for both single and repeated impact, the impact response parameters vary linearly with thickness for the chosen plates. Moreover, the damage patterns are inconsistent with each other in that the dominant damage mode changes from intra-laminar damage to inter-laminar damage as the thickness increases owing to the better load-bearing capacity of the thicker layer.