Hail Impact on Composite Plates – Experiments and Numerical Modelling

Článek recenzovaný mimo WoS a Scopus

en

Aircraft structures may be subjected to various in-service impact threats, such as tool drops, runaway debris, bird strikes etc. With the increasing use of monolithic composite laminates on aircraft primary structures and large external surfaces (i.e. fuselage panels, wing skins, leading edges etc.) hail impact can also be a major threat that could potentially compromise structural integrity and lead to structural failures. For these reasons hail impact has received increasing interest within the research community as well as the latest aircraft composite structures development programmes. This paper describes the experimental approach for measuring the damage caused to monolithic CFRP and GFRP composite plates subjected to impact by an ice-ball (i.e. simulated hailstone) and the several possibilities for predicting this damage by numerical modelling in Simulia Abaqus finite element software. The experimental part of this work is concerned with the development and calibration of air pressure gun, and the evaluation and comparison of different composite materials behaviour under the hail impact conditions. In the numerical modelling part of this work an Abaqus explicit modelling approach to simulate damage initiation and growth in both ice and composite materials is presented and the derived results are compared to the experimental measurements.

Hail impact, Composite, Aircraft, FEM, Abaqus Explicit

2012-10-17

VUT v Brně

VUT v Brně

1425-2104

RESEARCH BULLETIN

2012

22

1–10

10