Abstract

The main aim of this study is to investigate the Impact properties of Epoxy matrix composites by a drop weight impact tester using spherical steel projectile with five different ranges of heights. Three different types of reinforcement were used in the experimental works: woven glass, woven glass+carbon, unidirectional carbon. This study showed that reinforcing epoxy with unidirectional and woven carbon and glass improves the impact properties. Minimum deformation and maximum force and energy were in woven glass reinforced epoxy, while unidirectional carbon reinforcement showed low impact energy absorption and high deformation and failure in a very short time compared with others due to susceptibility to impact damage while the impact strength of hybrid carbon+glass is higher than carbon composites because glass fibers add additional resistance to impact and damage.

Keywords:

Drop weight impact, epoxy resin, unidirectional fiber and woven fiber,

References

1. Arturas, K., K. Neringa and Z. Antanas, 2010. Experimental research of the impact response of e-glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy composite systems. Mater. Sci., 16(4): 324-329.
   
2. Bajpai, R., V. Mishra, P. Agrawal and S.C. Datt, 2002. Surface modification on PMMA: PVDF polyblend: Hardeningunder chemical environment. B. Mater. Sci., 25(1): 21-23.
   CrossRef    
3. Basim, M.F., 2013. Effect of plies stacking sequence and tube geometry on the crush behavior of tube under low velocity impact-numerical study. Int. J. Mech. Appl., 3(2): 44-51.
   
4. Campbell, F.C., 2010. Structural Composite Materials. ASM International. Retrieved from: www.asminternational.org.
   Direct Link
5. Falcó, O., C.S. Lopes, J.A. Mayugo, N. Gascons and J. Renart, 2014. Effect of tow-drop gaps on the damage resistance and tolerance of variable-stiffness panels. Compos. Struct., 116: 94-103.
   CrossRef    
6. Kaleemulla, K.M. and B. Siddeswarappa, 2009. Damage characteristics of fabric reinforced hybrid composite laminates subjected to low energy impacts. Int. J. Mater. Prod. Technol., 34: 303-311.
   CrossRef    
7. Raghad, H.M., 2013. Study the effect of glass fibers on mechanical properties of epoxy composites. Eng. Tech. J., 31(5): 653-659.
   
8. Rahmani, H., S. Heydar Mahmoudi Najafi and A. Ashori, 2014. Mechanical performance of epoxy/carbon fiber laminated composites. J. Reinf. Plast. Comp., 33(8): 733-740.
   CrossRef    
9. Saad, N.A., M.S. Hamzah and A.F. Hamzah, 2014. Experimental and Numerical Simulation of Impact Fracture Toughness of Polyphenylene Sulfide Basis Composite Material. Repository of Open Access Papers, University of Babylon Library, pp: 1-14.
   
10. Sohn, M.S., X.Z. Hu, J.K. Kim and L. Walker, 2000. Impact damage characterization of carbon fiber/epoxy composites with multi-layer reinforcement. Compos. Part B-Eng., 31: 681-691.
    CrossRef    
11. Sunith Babu, L. and H.K. Shivanand, 2014. Impact analysis of laminated composite on glass fiber and carbon fiber. Int. J. Emerg. Technol. Adv. Eng., 4(6): 824-829.
    
12. Sutherland, L.S. and C. Guedes Soares, 2005. Impact characterisation of low fibre-volume glass reinforced polyester, circular laminated plates. Int. J. Impact Eng., 31: 1-23.
    CrossRef    
13. Vieille, B., V.M. Casado and C. Bouvet, 2013. About the impact behavior of woven-ply carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic- and thermosetting-composites: A comparative study. Compos. Struct., 101: 9-21.
    CrossRef    

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.