Effects Of Stacking Sequence On Impact Damage Resistance Of Composite Laminates

As advanced composite structures are widely used in the aerospace structures, and they aresusceptible to be impacted during manufacture and in service such as tool drop or equipment bump,thus many researchers pay more attention to the research on the damage problems of compositestructures. Damage resistance of laminates is proposed as a standard measurement for evaluating thebehavior of laminated composites due to this reason. In experimental study of composite materials,the specimen is difficult to make, and the cost of test is expensive. Consequently many researches ofthe properties of composite materials under impact focused on the numerical simulation andtheoretical analysis.A effective3D finite element model of composite laminated plate was established for damagebehavior analysis and prediction under low velocity impact. Improved Chang/Chang failure criterionincluding all kinds of damage forms, such as fiber tensile failure, fiber compress failure, matrixcrushing, matrix cracking, were used to model in-plate damage. TIEBREAK contact equivalent ofMixed-Mode cohesive zone model were used for modeling the regions between two layers, thiscontact combined the traditional stress failure criterion and the energy release rate criteria of fracturemechanics to predict interface damage initiation and extension. The good agreement betweennumerical analysis and experimental results shows that this method is reasonable and accurate.Impact damage of multiple stacking sequence of composite laminated plate are studied in finiteelement simulation with the validated numerical method. Combined the characteristics of impactdamage of composite laminated plate, three parameters of stacking sequence affecting damage areaare studied: interface angel, ply orientation, ply grouping. After general study of the effects ofstacking sequence on the impact resistance, some guidelines to improve the impact damage resistanceof composite plates are given.