Session: 01-06-03: Impact, Fatigue, Damage and Fracture of Composite Structures 3

Paper Number: 152489

152489 - Study on the Effects of Impact Damage Modes on Compressive Load-Bearing Capacity After Impact 

Compression after impact (CAI) tests evaluate the compressive load-bearing capacity of impacted fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite panels. Previous studies have focused on studying the effects of impact damage extents (e.g., damage footprint sizes and shapes) on the CAI responses, examining the impact damage tolerance of various material systems and panel sizes. In this study, we investigated the fundamental mechanisms of impact damage modes affecting the CAI progressive damage behaviors.  The studied impact damage modes include matrix cracking, fiber breaking, and delamination. We started with a benchmark computational modeling of the CAI of an impacted IM7/977-3 FRP composite panel, leveraging a damage transferring algorithm to seed the CAI model with all the damage modes induced by the impact event. Then, we performed computational parameter studies by suppressing the transfer of individual impact damage modes to investigate the effects of the suppressed damage modes. The investigated cases encompass CAI without impact-induced fiber breaking, CAI without impact-induced matrix cracking, and CAI without impact-induced delamination. Through a systematic and detailed comparison of the case study results with the benchmark data, we have identified the influences of different impact damage modes on the final CAI load-bearing capacity and damage propagation patterns. This study carries value in gaining fundamental insights into how each impact damage mode contributes to the final CAI failure, thus providing guidelines to strengthen FRP composite components for high-impact damage tolerance.  

Presenting Author: Shiyao Lin University of Texas at Arlington

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Shiyao Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). He is also a member of the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM) at the UTA Research Institute (UTARI). Before joining UTA, Dr. Lin worked as a senior failure analysis R&D engineer at Intel Corporation and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Lin obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan in Aerospace Engineering and his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST).