THICK NCF COMPOSITE LAMINATES: LOW VELOCITY IMPACT PERFORMANCE

摘要

Thick section carbon fibre composite laminates are intended to be used as wing skins on large civil and military aircraft with thicknesses up to and beyond 30mm. In this work thick carbon fibre reinforced epoxy laminates are manufactured using the resin film infusion method with triaxial and uni-directional non-crimped fabrics (NCF). Laminates up to 12mm thick have been successfully manufactured and tested. In particular interest in this research is the effect of a transverse impact near a free edge. Three impact energies were used to test the laminates, and the damage evaluated using ultrasonic C-scan and post impact residual strength tests. It was found that edge impacted laminates suffered from extensive delamination whereas centrally impacted laminates fibre breakage. This meant that edge impacted plates had better tensile residual strength compared to a centrally impacted plate; the opposite was true with compressive residual strength.