Modelling Impact Damage in Stiffened Composite Panels

Kurzfassung

This paper describes recent progress on materials modelling and numerical simulation of fibre reinforced composite shell structures subjected to high velocity impact loads. A Continuum Damage Mechanics (CDM) model for fibre reinforced composites is applied to model both in-ply damage and delamination failure during impact loading. The CDM model has been implemented in a commercial explicit finite element (FE) code in which a laminate is modelled by stacked shell elements with cohesive interfaces which fracture when a delamination failure energy criterion is reached. The code is applied to predict the response of stringer stiffened composite panels subjected to gas gun impact tests by steel impactors under a range of test conditions. A comparison of structural response and failure modes from numerical simulations and impact tests shows good agreement for the prediction of delamination damage and shell penetration at higher impact energies.