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COMPOSITE
M AT E R I A L S
Article
Abstract
As the application of fibre-reinforced polymer composite material continue to increase day by day, so the knowledge
about the impact behaviour of fibre-reinforced polymer composite structures in the areas such as automotive and
aerospace is very much needed. This article attempts a comprehensive review of recent literature in the broader
area of impact damage. Testing methods and standard parameters as well as discussion of important aspects such as
impactor shape, weight of impactor, velocity of impact, environment in which impact takes place are presented.
Furthermore, the damage area, energy absorbed, contact time and many other considerations are discussed. Finally,
an effort is made to review the research work by considering all aspects related to impact on such type of composite
materials.
Keywords
Composites, fibre-reinforced polymer, impact damage
Introduction
In present days bre-reinforced composite materials are
widely used in various engineering applications including automotive, aviation and engineering structures due
to their lightweight, high stiness, strength and damping properties. Air vehicles may be subjected to impact
loads by foreign objects such as debris from runways,
bird strikes or hailstones (during ight). The impact
damage in composite materials may not be detected
sometimes by visual inspection. Such impact-induced
damages occur inside the material and increase after
the onset of small delaminations. In an impact event,
several damage types occur in composite materials such
as matrix cracking, delamination and bre breakage.
Consequently, the impact behaviour of the laminated
composite materials is an important phenomenon to be
studied.1 The brittle nature of most bre-reinforced
polymer (FRP) composites accompanying other forms
of energy absorption mechanisms such as bre breakage, matrix cracking, debonding at the brematrix
interface and especially plies delamination, play
important roles on progressive failure mode and
energy absorption capability of composite structures.
These failure modes under low-velocity impact loading
conditions are strongly dependent on the bre type,
resin type, lay-up, thickness, loading velocity and
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hindustan College of Science &
Technology, India
2
Department Of Mechanical Engineering & Mining Machinery Engineering,
Indian School of Mines, India
Corresponding author:
Sandeep Agrawal, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hindustan
College of Science & Technology, Farah, Mathura 281122, India.
Email: san197012@rediffmail.com
318
Impact
In general, impact damage is not considered to be a
threat in metallic structures because of the ductile
nature of the material and the large amount of energy
that can be absorbed. At yield stress, the material may
ow for very large strains at a constant rate before
work hardening, but the composites can fail in a wide
variety of modes and contain impact damages visible by
a naked eye which severely reduces the structural durability of the component. Most composites are brittle
and so they can only absorb energy in elastic deformation and through damage mechanisms, and not via
plastic deformation. The term damage resistance7
refers to the amount of impact damage which is
induced in a composite structure. Most of the impacts
on a composite structure will be in the transverse direction but due to the lack of through thickness
reinforcement, transverse damage resistance is particularly poor. Interlaminar stresses (shear and tension) are
often the stresses that cause primary failure due to the
low interlaminar strengths. As a result, design failure
strains are used to guard against impact failure, resulting in a failure to take advantage of the excellent inplane strength and stiness properties of composites.
Velocity of impact
Impacts are generally classied into three categories as
low-velocity impact, high-velocity impact and sometimes hyper velocity impact, but there is not a clear
transition between categories and authors disagree on
their denition.
Sjoblom et al.8 and Shivakumar et al.9 dene lowvelocity impact as events which can occur in the range
110 m/s depending on the target stiness, material
properties and the impactor mass and stiness.
High-velocity impact response is dominated by stress
wave propagation through the material in which the
structure does not have time to respond, leading to
much localised damage. Boundary condition eects
can be ignored because the impact event is over
before the stress waves have reached the edge of the
structure. In low-velocity impact, the dynamic structural response of the target is of utmost importance
as the contact duration is long enough for the entire
structure to respond to the impact and in consequence
more energy is absorbed elastically.
Cantwell and Morton10 conveniently classied low
velocity as up to 10 m/s, by considering the test techniques which are generally employed in simulating the
impact event (instrumented falling weight impact testing), Charpy, Izod, etc., whilst, in contrast, Abrate11 in
his review of impact on laminated composites stated
that low-velocity impacts occur for impact speeds of
less than l00 m/s.
Impact tests
To simulate actual impact by a foreign object, a
number of test procedures have been suggested by
many researchers. The initial kinetic energy of the projectile is an important parameter to be considered, but
several other factors also aect the response of the
structure. A large mass with low initial velocity may
not cause the same amount of damage as a smaller
mass with higher velocity, even if the kinetic energies
are exactly the same.
At the moment, two types of tests are used by most
investigators, although many details of the actual test
apparatus may dier. Experimental studies attempt to
replicate actual situations under controlled conditions.
For example, during aircraft takeo and landing,
debris ying from the runway can cause damage; this
situation, with small high-velocity projectiles, is best
simulated using a gas gun. Another concern is the
impact of a composite structure by a larger projectile
at low velocity which occurs when tools are accidentally
dropped on a structure. This situation is best simulated
using a drop weight tester.
Drop weight testers (Figure 1) are used extensively
and can be of dierent designs. Heavy impactors are
usually guided by a rail during free fall from a given
height.16 Usually, a sensor activates a mechanical
device designed to prevent multiple impacts after the
impactor bounces backup.
Pendulum-type systems (Charpy impact tests) are
used to generate low-velocity impacts. Pendulum-type
testers consist of a steel ball hanging from a string, or a
heavier projectile equipped with force transducers or
velocity sensors. The Hopkinson-type pressure bar
technique was also used. Ghasemnejad et al.17 used a
Charpy impact device consisting of three main parts of
Agrawal et al.
319
signicant eect on the dynamic response of the structure. Researchers and practitioners are also interested
in properties of the matrix, the bres and the bre
matrix interface which control the initiation and
growth of impact damage. The thickness of the laminates, the size of the panel and the boundary conditions
are all factors that inuence the impact dynamics, since
they control the stiness of the target. The characteristics of the projectile including its weight, shape, elastic
properties and incident angles are other parameters to
be considered. The layup, stitching, preload and environmental conditions are important factors which are to
be given attention.
Projectile characteristics
Impactor shape and weight of impactor play a signicant role in impact damage. In past research, the most
common impactor shape used has been hemispherical.
However, a dropped tool on a composite panel during
maintenance may not always impact the panel with a
blunt shape such as a hemisphere. Apart from the
common hemispherical impactor, some researchers
have used other impactor shapes such as at-ended
and conical. These experiments have been conducted
under varying conditions, which make it impossible to
compare the results since there are many parameters
that can aect the impact response of composite laminates. Research which considered the eect of impactor
shape has predominantly been in the high-velocity
impact eld where, for instance, the impact resistance
of armour has led to research into the ballistic limit of
projectile shapes. However, it is known that specimens
react dierently to high-velocity impacts where there is
a localised response compared to low-velocity impacts
where a global response may predominate.
Yang and Cantwell16 investigated the damage initiation in glass bre (GF) reinforced epoxy plates subjected to low-velocity impact loading by considering the
eect of key parameters such as target size, projectile
diameter and test temperature on damage initiation.
The experimental data have been analysed using
simple energy based and stress-based models. The
results show that the damage initiation threshold
force, Pcrit varies with t3/2where t is the thickness of
the composite. For a given target thickness, the Pcrit
does not exhibit a dependency on the plate diameter
for the range of target geometries. It was also found
that at elevated temperature, the damaged threshold
also follows t3/2 dependency. The damage threshold
varied with projectile diameter with Pcrit increasing
steadily with increasing projectile diameter.
In Mitrevski et al.18, the eects of impactor shape
was investigated using hemispherical, ogival and
conical impactors as shown in Figure 3 on carbon/
320
Figure 2. The Zwick/Roell Charpy test rig: (a) side view and (b) front view.17
Figure 3. (a) Hemispherical tup; (b) ogival tup; and (c) conical tup.18
Agrawal et al.
321
Material properties
Mechanical properties of bre-reinforced composites
are dependent on the properties of the constituent
materials (type, quantity, bre distribution and orientation and void content). Beside these properties, the
nature of the interfacial bonds and the mechanisms of
load transfer at the interface also play an important
role. If the building parts of composites dier in physical form and in chemical composition, only a weak
interaction can be developed at the interface. For
improving the adhesion between the matrix and the
bres, there are varieties of modication technique
depending on the bre and matrices type. One of
them is the application of coupling agents, which are
able to establish chemical bonds between the bre and
the matrix due to their chemical composition. The price
of surface modier chemicals is one of the key points in
the applicability of reinforced composites.33 Polyesters
could not be applied for technological purposes without
reinforcing because of low strength and brittleness, but
they are intensively used for composite matrices.34,35
The GF composites are the most wide spread among
bre-reinforced materials due to their favourable mechanical and economical characteristics. For industrial
applications, the E- and S-type GFs are the most commonly used because they have the most favourable
cost-mechanical property relationships. Thermoset
composites have been applied in 1940s in aircraft industry for the rst time. Those materials were laminated
polyester composites, and the rst application was the
cover of radar antennas because there was a need for
such non-metallic materials that allowed radio waves
through without distortion. The manufactured parts
were found to have better weight/volume ratio than
the ones made from metallic materials. Since then,
thermoset composites have been applied as construction materials. Current civil aircraft applications have
concentrated on replacing the secondary structure with
brous composites, where the reinforcement material
has either been carbon, glass, Kevlar, or hybrids of
those.36
Several authors have been studying the eect of
composite hybridisation on high-velocity impact behaviour.3739 Novak and De Crescente40 showed that the
addition of GF to CFRP and boron/epoxy system
322
Agrawal et al.
323
Symons60 has investigated the characterisation of highand low-speed impact damage in CFRP. For the same
impact energies, results show that the same delamination
areas occur under high- and low-velocity impacts
although the permanent indentation is greater for highspeed than low-speed impact. Aktas et al.61 and Icten
et al.62 have investigated the impact response of unidirectional glass/epoxy laminates in room and low-temperature conditions by considering energy prole
diagrams and associated loaddeection curves.
Results show that the penetration threshold for [0 /90 /
45 /45 ]S is smaller than that of [0 /90 /0 /90 ]S.
Freitas et al.63 have carried out a numerical study to
examine the failure mechanism in composite specimens
subjected to impact loading. Results show that the
numerical evaluation of impact with a linear static
nite element analysis is not very accurate, but it gives
a meaningful insight on the major mechanisms of failure.
Zhang et al.64 have done a series of nite element analyses
using ABAQUS commercial software to predict damage
initiation and propagation in laminated carbon/epoxy
composite plates subjected to low-velocity impact. A
damage surface which combines stress-based and fracture mechanics based failure criteria is set up to derive the
damage evolution law. The damage model is implemented into a commercial nite element package,
ABAQUS, via its user subroutine VUINTER.
Numerical results on (04, 904)s carbonepoxy laminated
plates subjected to transversely low-velocity impact are
in good agreement with experimental observations.
Olsson et al.65 have predicted the delamination
threshold load for small mass/high-velocity impact on
transversely isotropic plates with dierent thicknesses
using LS-DYNA nite element software. The predicted
delamination threshold loads and velocities are in very
good agreement with the nite element simulations.
Good agreement is also shown in a comparison with
published experimental results. In contrast to quasistatic impacts, delamination growth occurs under a
rapidly decreasing load. Inclusion of nite thickness
eects and a proper description of the contact stiness
are found to be vital for accurate prediction of the
delamination threshold velocity.
Aslan et al.66 have carried out an experimental and
numerical study to investigate the in-plane dimension
eect on the impact response of cross-ply glass/epoxy
laminated composite plates under low-velocity impact.
Results show that the impact behaviour of composite
structures is directly dependent on their in-plane dimensions. Tiberkak et al.67 have studied the damage prediction in composite plates subjected to low-velocity
impact by the use of nite element analysis. Results
showed that the increase of the 90 plies causes increase
in the contact force and a reduction in the rigidity of
laminate. Mili and Necib68 have considered the impact
324
Preload
Many researchers have analytically and experimentally
investigated the low-velocity impact behaviour of composite laminated structures.70 Most composite structures will be under some level of stress when
impacted. For example, the upper layer of the main
wing of the aircraft will be mainly under in-plane compressive load during ight and the lower one will be
under in-plane tensile load. So, foreign objects like
hail and debris in the runway shall give an impact to
Agrawal et al.
325
Environmental conditions
A few researchers have also showed the eect of environmental aspects on impact damage such as low temperature, UV rays, etc. Because most composite
structures are used outdoors, it cannot be avoided
that composite structures are subjected to various
environmental conditioning. The study of impact and
post impact response of laminated composites subjected to environmental conditioning other than ambient is more realistic. Karasek et al.76 have evaluated the
inuence of temperature and moisture on the impact
resistance of an epoxy/graphite composite. They have
found that only at elevated temperatures, the moisture
had a signicant eect on damage initiation energy and
that the energy required for initiating damage had been
found to decrease with temperature. The investigations
by Bibo et al.77 have shown that temperature is capable
of altering the nature and extent of impact induced
damages. Parvatareddy et al.78 have investigated the
low-velocity impact behaviour of laminated composites
aged at elevated temperature in both air and nitrogen
environments. They have indicated that the ageing
environment has a signicant eect on the residual tensile strength. Hale et al.79 have found that the eect of
temperature and moisture is interactive. The loss of
strength and stiness of laminated composites at elevated temperatures is exacerbated by the increased rate
of water absorption at high temperatures. Li et al.80
have investigated the eect of cycling moisture on the
low-velocity impact behaviour of laminated composites
at elevated temperatures. Their results show that the
rst moisture cycle has a signicant eect on reducing
the low-velocity impact resistance of laminated composites. Elevated temperature accelerates the damaging
eect of cycling moistures. Pang et al.81 have investigated the eect of ultraviolet radiation on the lowvelocity impact response of laminated beams.
They have found that UV radiation alone has a signicant eect on reducing the residual load-carrying capacity of impact damaged laminated beams. The
presence of water increased the damage eect of UV
radiation. Ibekwe et al.82 investigated low-velocity
impact response and post-impact compression buckling
strength of GF reinforced unidirectional and cross-ply
laminated composite beams at low temperatures and
showed that the temperature has a signicant eect
on the low-velocity impact responses of laminated composites. More impact damage is induced in specimens
impacted at lower temperatures than those at higher
temperatures. The residual compressive buckling
strength and elastic modulus increase until a certain
point as temperature drops, at a much lower temperature both the residual compressive buckling strength
and the elastic modulus drop. It was also found that
the impact damage and the temperature have an opposite eect on the residual compressive buckling strength
and elastic modulus. The impact damage reduces the
residual compressive strength while the low temperature tends to increase it. Salehi-Khojin et al.83 investigated the role of temperature on impact properties of
Kevlar/breglass composite laminates. In this investigation, impact energy level and temperature were found
to have signicant eects on the impact behaviour of
breglass and combinations of breglass with Kevlar.
At low impact energy, the amount of maximum
absorbed energy is almost constant and independent
of temperature. With increasing energy level, absorbed
energy becomes more and more dependent on temperature. At each of the impact energies, maximum deection is a function of impact energy and temperature
such that maximum deection increases with a corresponding increase in impact energy or temperature.
A few studies have focused on the eect of temperature on the impact response of polymer matrix composites. A decrease in delamination area was reported84
with increase in temperature in the range between
40 C and 70 C for a carbon bre composite laminate
subjected to high energy impact. In a similar highvelocity impact study on cross-ply laminates of polyethylene bre/epoxy matrix system,85 it was found that
the damage initiation energy doubled when the temperature was increased from 50 C to 100 C. In contrast, laminates containing plain-weave fabrics showed
very little inuence of temperature on the total impact
energy required for complete penetration of the specimen. Son and Kwon Young86 studied the eect of temperature variation (30 C to 120 C) on damage to
orthotropic CFRP laminates at non-penetrating
impact velocities (upto 100 m/s). They observed a
linear relationship between the impact energy and the
delaminated area as well as an increase in the damage
area as the temperature decreased.
326
Damage initiation
Impact damage usually follows some very complex distributions and it may not be possible to reconstruct the
entire sequence of events leading to a given damage
state. For low-velocity impact damage starts with the
creation of a matrix crack. In some cases, the target is
exible and the crack is created by tensile exural stresses in the bottom ply of laminate, this crack, which is
usually perpendicular to the plane of the laminate, is
called a tensile crack.2 For thick laminates, cracks
appear near the top of the laminate and are created
by the contact stresses. These cracks, called shear
cracks,2 are inclined relative to the mid-plane. Matrix
cracks induce delaminations at interfaces between adjacent plies and initiate a pattern of damage evolution
either from the bottom up or from the top down.
Therefore, while it is possible to predict the onset of
damage, a detailed prediction of the nal damage
state cannot realistically be achieved.
Two types of approaches are used for predicting
impact damage. The rst approach is aimed at predicting the overall damage size. It is based on the premise
that delaminations, which are the critical component of
impact damage, grow because of high transverse shear
stresses in the vicinity of the impactor. The idea is to
determine the distribution of the transverse shear force
resultant around the point of impact and to use an
appropriate failure criterion to estimate the size of the
damage zone.
The second approach to be discussed here deals with
the prediction of the threshold value of the contact
force that corresponds to damage initiation. When the
damage area is plotted versus the maximum impact
force, there is a clear sudden increase in damage size
once the load reaches a critical value Pcrit. Below this
critical value, the damage area is small due to Hertzian
surface (a surface according to Hertz contact law) and
Pcrit corresponds to the onset delaminations.2
Under low-velocity impact loading conditions, the
time of contact between projectile and target are relatively long. The load history can yield important information concerning damage initiation and growth.8791
Several investigators used the force history to compare
the structural response from impact tests. As pointed
out in the literature, the rst load drop, in terms of
Hertzian failure or signicant damage corresponds to
the occurrence of initial damage in the form of matrix
cracking, bre breakage and local puncture or indentation.8996 Davies and Zhang88 pointed out that the rst
damage threshold is probably due to the initialisation
of delamination failure. Belingardi and Vadori91
dened two thresholds from the load history. The rst
one was at the rst load drop for the rst material
damage and the second one was the maximum force
value for the rst lamina failure.
Damage propagation
When a solid is subjected to any kind of loading, static
or impact, it can absorb energy by two basic mechanism creations of new surfaces and material deformation. The material deformation occurs rst. If the
energy supplied is large enough, a crack may initiate
and propagate, thus actuating the second energyabsorbing mechanism. The material deformation
continues in advance of the crack during crack propagation. In the case of brittle materials such as glass and
other ceramics only a small amount of deformation
takes place. The associated energy absorbed is also
small. As a consequence, brittle materials exhibit a
low energy absorption capability.
Impact energy (Ei) and absorbed energy (Ea) are two
main parameters that can be used to assess damage
propagation in composite structures after an impact
event. Ei can be dened as the kinetic energy of the
impactor right before contactimpact takes place
while Ea is termed as the amount of energy absorbed
by the composite specimen at the end of an impact
Agrawal et al.
327
Figure 5. Calculation of the absorbed energy from loaddeflection curves for a non-perforated specimen (a) and a perforated
specimen (b).100
328
Figure 7. The variation of impact energy versus (a) maximum contact force, (b) maximum deflection and (c) contact time depending
on the equal mass and the equal velocity.101
velocity has reached the penetration threshold. In addition, the energy absorption capability of the specimen
subjected to equal mass is lower than the specimen subjected to equal velocity, for the same impact energy.
They have carried out an experimental and numerical study to investigate the eect of the equal impact
energy (40 J), equal impactor mass (5 kg) and equal velocity (2 m/s) on the contact force, deection, contact
Agrawal et al.
329
signicant damages such as matrix cracks, delaminations and bre fractures. Numerous studies on the
impact response of composite materials and structures
can be found in review papers.
Low-velocity impact refers to impacts in the range
110 m/s which are ordinarily introduced in the laboratory by mechanical test machines. The contact period is
such that the whole structure has time to respond to the
loading. The modes of impact damage induced range
from matrix cracking and delamination through to
bre failure and penetration. Damage mode interaction
must also be understood when attempting to predict
initiation and propagation of a particular form of
damage. Toughened resins or thermoplastics can
reduce matrix-dominated damage but the bres have
the most bearing on impact response and over the
narrow velocity range under consideration, the strain
rate sensitivity of bres can be ignored. Post-impact
performance is related to the major damage mode;
therefore, a combination of tension and compression
residual strength testing is required to characterise the
laminate.
Polymer-matrix composites are known to be highly
susceptible to internal damage caused by transverse
loads even under low-velocity impacts. The composites
can be damaged on the surface. They can also be
damaged beneath the surface by relatively light impacts
causing barely visible impact damage, while the surface
may appear to be undamaged to visual inspection. For
the eective use of polymer-matrix composites for highperformance applications, understanding the causes
of the formation of such damage when subjected to
low- and high-velocity impact and improving the
damage-resistance characteristics of the composites are
important considerations. Vast research has been performed on simple geometry carbon/epoxy cross-ply
laminates consisting of plies at various bre orientations,
due to their importance in the aerospace industry. The
low-velocity impact response of random bre/unidirectional laminate combinations and impacts on complex
geometry are less well documented, and more research
work is required in these areas if composite laminates are
to be employed in more structural applications.
Conclusion
Funding
Conflict of interest
None declared.
References
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Thesis, DokuzEylul University, Turkey, 2008.
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