Progressive delamination analysis of composite laminates under repeated out of plane impact loading

In this paper, damage of Glass/Epoxy composite laminates in the form of intralaminar and interlaminar cracking subjected to repeated out of plane low velocity impact was modeled using strain-based criteria for damage initiation, and continuum damage mechanics to capture its evolution. The finite element method was employed to simulate the behaviour of the composite under low velocity impact. Interface cohesive elements were inserted between plies with different orientation to model delamination. The constitutive models for intralaminar damage modes were implemented into the ABAQUS/Explicit FE code by user-defined subroutine. The results of numerical simulations were compared with the experimental data obtained by a single drop-weight impact testing. It is shown that a reasonably good agreement was achieved between numerical predictions and experimental observations in terms of shape, orientation and size of delamination. Keywords - ,, , impact