NEW APPROACH FOR RESIDUAL COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH PREDICTION OF IMPACTEDCFRP LAMINATES

Carbon fibre-reinforced plastics (CFRP) are susceptible to low velocit y impact. The damage mechanisms occurring in the laminates are depende nt on several parameters and no damage occurs if the impact energy is accommodated by the elastic strain energy in the material. In the pres ent paper a two-parameter model has been developed for residual compre ssive strength prediction of impacted carbon fibre-reinforced laminate s. The model takes into account parameters such as stacking sequence a nd material properties. For verification of the model, two groups of e xperimental results were used: group A test results were taken from th e literature, while those of group B were taken from experiments execu ted within the framework of an EEC project, in which the University of Patras participated as a partner. Good agreement was found between ex perimental findings and theoretical predictions. Nomograms derived fro m the present model can be used for optimum design of the carbon fibre -reinforced laminates.