Fiber reinforced composites have become increasingly important over the past few years and are now the first choice for fabricating structures where low weight in combination with high strength and stiffness are required. Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) composites are in greatest commercial use. They have been extensively used in aerospace, automotive, marine and construction industries due to their inherent advantages over conventional metals. Failure modes of such laminated structures are also different than those of conventional metallic materials. Impact is one such great design limitation criteria involved in designing new composite products. The present work is aimed at gaining an initial understanding of the impact behavior of fiberglass reinforced laminates with vinylester and is polyester resins. The purpose of this research is to characterize the damage done to fiberglass laminates subjected to low velocity, high mass impact. The effect of adding a protective layer of rubber to the laminates is also investigated. Finite element models are created with ANSYS/LS-DYNA onlinear finite element software. These models are used to simulate the drop tower tests and extended to thicker laminates as well as different impact speeds and impactor mass. These models are able to predict approximate stresses and strains induced in the laminates during the impact which are compared to the damage from the drop tower tests.
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