Experimental determination of elastic properties of impact damage in carbon fibre/epoxy laminates

This paper describes an investigation of in-plane elastic properties of impact damaged regions in composite laminates. Quasi-isotropic carbon fibre/epoxy laminates were impacted and the impact damage examined by ultrasonic C-scanning, optical microscopy and thermal deplying. After impact damage observations, specimens were cut from the laminates and tested in tension and compression. The elastic modulus of the impact damage was, in both tension and compression, mainly controlled by the amount of fibre breakage. Interestingly, layers with broken fibres could sustain some load in compression, which led to higher elastic modulus in compression than in tension. The effect of delaminations on the elastic modulus was quite small in both tension and compression. The through-the-thickness variation of in-plane stiffness was studied by successively removing plies. The variation in stiffness was negligible, probably as a result of the very uniform distribution of delaminations and fibre breakage through the thickness of the laminates. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.