Modelling of High Velocity Impact on Carbon Fibre Composite Materials

 

Rade Vignjević

Nenad Đorđević

This paper investigates modelling of shock wave propagation, damage evolution and failure in an orthotropic material undergoing extreme loading conditions. More specifically, the material of the interest is Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) laminate of the type commonly used in aerospace engineering. A constitutive model is developed in a framework of thermodynamics for small deformation problems. Shock wave propagation is predicted well owing to the accurate decomposition of the material volumetric compression effects and the equation of state (EOS) [2]. A modified Tuler-Bucher criterion [4] is proposed for modelling damage in the framework of irreversible thermodynamics. The model is implemented into the LLNL DYNA3D nonlinear hydrocode and coupled with the rest of the constitutive model. The results obtained with the proposed model are compared with the experimental data generated at Cranfield University [8, 11].

Key words: composite materials, orthotropic materials, laminates, carbon fibre, dynamic loading, stress loading, process modeling, process decomposition, structure damage.