Hail ice impact simulation and damage response analysis in composite laminates

Hail ice impact and the induced damage are a real threat to the exposed composite laminates in the aircraft structures. In the present work, a nonlinear finite element (FE) model is proposed to investigate the mechanical behavior of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminates under hail ice impact. Lagrangian FE and smooth particle hydrodynamics method (FE-SPH) is comprehensively applied to reproduce the impact behavior of hail ice and the equation of state (EoS) for liquid is introduced to describe the flow characteristics of hail failure. A rate-dependent constitutive model is adopted to identify the intra-laminar response of laminates and a bilinear cohesive zone model is used for modeling delamination of interface. A subroutine VUMAT is coded and executed to attain the numerical solution based on ABAQUS/Explicit solver. The transient dynamic process of CFRP laminates subjected to hail impact is replicated in detail. The failure threshold velocity (FTV) model and damage characteristics of CFRP laminates under different impact conditions are investigated thoroughly. The numerical results are mostly consistent with the available experimental data thus validates the effectiveness of the proposed hail ice impact model.