An experimental and finite element investigation of compression-after-impact (CAI) behaviour of biaxial carbon fibre non-crimp-fabric (NCF) based composites

Abstract

The damage mechanisms of biaxial non-crimp-fabric (NCF) reinforced composites with a quasi-isotropic [(45/-45)(90/0)]4s layup subject to low-velocity impact (LVI) and compression-after-impact (CAI) loadings are investigated. Experimental results indicate that fibre compressive failure in the 0° plies controls the peak load during CAI, which is influenced by the out-of-plane transverse deformation of the impacted specimen. The study proposes a novel finite element (FE) model to predict the CAI strength of the NCF specimen. While the number of delaminations in the LVI model is less than the actual number of the multiple delaminations in the test specimen, the same out-of-plane transverse deformation measured by the experiment is still captured. The strength predicted from the subsequent CAI model is in good agreement with the experiment. The study provides a potential numerical design tool for the use of NCF materials in damage-tolerant structures.