Title: Analysis of impact damage and residual static strength in improved CFRP

Authors: M. Clerico, G. Ruvinetti, F. Cipri, M. Pelosi

Addresses: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aeronautica e Spaziale, Torino, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aeronautica e Spaziale, Torino, Italy. ' Aeritalia GVC, Torino, Italy. ' Aeritalia GVC, Torino, Italy

Abstract: Although reinforced plastics are more and more used for structures of aircraft, spacecraft and other vehicles for transportation which could be easily impacted during manufacturing and use, impact damage is expected to greatly reduce the load-carrying capacity of these materials. This paper reports the results of two different sets of falling weight impact experiments performed on |old| and improved thermosetting carbon fibre composites for obtaining residual tensile and compressive strength, respectively. Impact damage was observed with NDT techniques. During the strength tests acoustic emission was monitored. Tensile tests were specially made for analysing the instrumented impact tester results and NDT for finding slight impact damage. Compressive tests gave the material with the best behaviour after impact.

Keywords: acoustic emission; compressive tests; impact damage; improved CFRP; load carrying capacity; non-destructive testing; NDT; residual static strength; structural materials; tensile tests; carbon fibre reinforced plastics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.1989.036723

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 1989 Vol.4 No.1, pp.61 - 70

Published online: 06 Nov 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article