Nitinol wire-reinforced GLAREs as a novel impact resistant material: An experimental study

Abstract

Glass-fiber-reinforced aluminum layers (GLARE) are one of the excellent impact resistant materials, benefited from both the metal and glass fibers properties. Owing to their high impact damping properties, the shape memory alloys have been also considered as useful materials for arming the conventional impact-exposed materials. In the present paper, the shape memory wires were integrated with GLARE laminate and its response to the Charpy low-velocity impact was experimentally studied. The current study is aimed to determine the effects of three parameters (pre-strain percentage of shape memory alloy (SMA), glass fibers angle and the location of SMA wires within the novel fiber metal laminate) for the first time. Hybrid GLARE specimens of this study were planned by Taguchi design of experiments (DOE) method and contained Nitinol shape memory alloy wires. The results showed that the pre-strain and the angle of glass fibers are the most effective parameters on the impact energy absorption at accepted levels of confidence. Regarding the innovations in the construction of this type of impact-resistant hybrid composites, this study could be used in design of aerospace bodies.