Response surface characterization of impact damage and residual strength degradation in composite sandwich panels

The influence of material configuration and impact parameters on the damage tolerance characteristics of sandwich composites comprised of carbon-epoxy woven fabric facesheets and Nomex honeycomb cores was investigated using empirically based response surfaces. A series of carefully selected tests were used to isolate the coupled influence of various combinations of the number of facesheet plies, core density, core thickness, impact energy, impactor diameter, and impact velocity on the damage formation and residual strength degradation due to normal impact. The ranges of selected material parameters were typical of those found in common aircraft applications. The diameter of the planar damage area associated with Through Transmission Ultrasonic C-scan measurements and the peak residual facesheet indentation depth were used to describe the extent of internal and detectable surface damage, respectively. Standard analysis of variance techniques were used to assess the significance of the regression models, individual model terms, and model lack-of-fit. In addition, the inherent variability associated with given types of experimental measurements was evaluated. Response surface estimates of the size of the planar damage region and compressive residual strength as a continuous function of material system and impact parameters correlated reasonably well with experimentally determined values. For a fixed set of impact parameters, regression results suggest that impact damage development and residual strength degradation is highly material and lay-up configuration dependent. Increasing the number of facesheet plies and the thickness of the core material generally resulted in the greatest improvement in the damage tolerance characteristics. An increase in the impact energy can result in a significant decrease in the estimated residual strength, particularly for those sandwich panels with thicker facesheets. The effects of variable impact velocity on damage formation and loss of strength were also addressed. Moreover, using a relatively small sample of experimental observations, statistical models were developed that are able to characterize the planar impact damage development and residual strength degradation for a large population of independent sandwich composite specimens. Employing the methodology outlined here, it may be possible to tailor sandwich composite designs in order to obtain enhanced damage tolerance characteristics over a range of expected impacts. Such efforts may facilitate sandwich panel design by establishing relationships between material configuration and impact parameters that lead to improved damage tolerance/resistance.