This article presents a comprehensive study on the mechanical behaviour of composite laminated plates undergoing a low-speed impact of an external body while they are subjected to in-plane preloads. The effect of such preloading was investigated by means of finite-element analysis of several impact events on laminates with three different span-to-thickness ratios. Tensile and compressive preloads, both uniaxial and biaxial, were considered; in the case of compression, the impact on buckled specimens was also studied. The results obtained show that the span-to-thickness ratio is a fundamental parameter in determining the effect of initial strains. Under a tensile preload, the impact-caused peak stresses were higher than in the case of no preload, and their increment was higher in thicker laminates. Under compression, the most dangerous influence of initial stresses was found at medium span-to-thickness ratios for preloads comparable with the buckling load, whereas, in other cases, negligible or even beneficial effects were observed. These results can justify some experimental findings from the existing literature, even if they were obtained without modelling the material degradation due to damage. Also, they allow us to conclude that the explanation of other phenomena strictly related to damage, as well as an accurate prediction of the extent of damage, requires a failure model.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
S. Abrate, Impact on Composite Structures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998).
C. T. Sun and S. Chattopadhyay, “Dynamic response of anisotropic laminated plates under initial stress to impact of a mass,” J. Appl. Mech. ASME, 42, No. 3, 693-698 (1975).
B. R. Butcher and P. J. Fernback, “Impact resistance of unidirectional CFRP under tensile stress: further experimental variables,” Fibre Sci. Technol., 14, No. 1, 41-58 (1981).
J. K. Chen and C. T. Sun, “Analysis of impact response of buckled composite laminates,” Compos. Struct., 3, No. 2, 97-118 (1985).
C. T. Sun and J. K. Chen, “On the impact of initially stressed composite laminates,” J. Compos. Mater., 19, No. 6, 490-504 (1985).
J. K. Chen and C. T. Sun, “Dynamic large deflection response of composite laminates subjected to impact,” Compos. Struct., 4, No. 1, 59-73 (1985).
B. V. Sankar and C. T. Sun, “Low-velocity impact damage in graphite-epoxy laminates subjected to tensile initial stresses,” AIAA J., 24, No. 3, 470-471 (1986).
M. D. Robb, W. S. Arnold, and I. H. Marshall, “The damage tolerance of GRP laminates under biaxial prestress,” Compos. Struct., 32, Nos. 1-4, 141-149 (1995).
S. T. Chiu, Y. Y. Liou, Y. C. Chang, and C. I. Ong, “Low velocity impact behavior of prestressed composite laminates,” Mater. Chem. Phys., 47, Nos. 2-3, 268-272 (1997).
A. D. Kelkar, J. Sankar, K. Rajeev, R. J. Aschenbrenner, and G. Schoeppner, “Analysis of tensile preloaded composites subjected to low-velocity impact loads,” in: 39th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Struct., Struct. Dynam. Mater. Conf., Pt. 3, Long Beach (CA, USA), (1998), pp. 1978-1987.
X. Zhang, G. A. O. Davies, and D. Hitchings, “Impact damage with compressive preload and post-impact compression of carbon composite plates,” Int. J. Impact Eng., 22, No. 5, 485-509 (1999).
B. Whittingham, I. H. Marshall, T. Mitrevski, and R. Jones, “The response of composite structures with pre-stress subject to low velocity impact damage,” Compos. Struct., 66, Nos. 1-4, 685-698 (2004).
T. Mitrevski, I. H. Marshall, R. S. Thomson, and R. Jones, “Low-velocity impacts on preloaded GFRP specimens with various impactor shapes,” Compos. Struct., 76, No. 3, 209-217 (2006).
S. M. R. Khalili, R. K. Mittal, and N. M. Panah, “Analysis of fiber reinforced composite plates subjected to transverse impact in the presence of initial stresses,” Compos. Struct., 77, No. 2, 263-268 (2007).
I. H. Choi, “Low-velocity impact analysis of composite laminates under initial in-plane load,” Compos. Struct., 86, Nos. 1-3, 251-257 (2008).
G. Minak and D. Ghelli, “Influence of diameter and boundary conditions on low velocity impact response of CFRP circular laminated plates,” Composites, Pt. B: Eng., 39, No. 6, 962-972 (2008).
D. Ghelli, “Dynamic numerical analysis of composite plates and shells with geometrical nonlinearity,” in: J. Soric, F. Gruttmann, and W. Wagner (eds.), Proc. Spec. Workshop Adv. Numer. Anal. Shell-Like Struct., Croat. Soc. Mech., Zagreb (HR) (2007), pp. 161-168.
T. J. R. Hughes and T. E. Tezduyar, “Finite elements based upon Mindlin plate theory with particular reference to the four-node bilinear isoparametric element,” J. Appl. Mech. ASME, 48, No. 3, 587-596 (1981).
K. J. Bathe, “Finite element procedures in engineering analysis,” Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1982).
S. P. Timoshenko and S. Woinowski-Krieger, “Theory of plates and shells,” McGraw-Hill, Singapore (1959).
P. Underwood, “Dynamic relaxation,” in: T. Belytschko and T. J. R. Hughes (eds.), Computational Methods for Transient Analysis, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1983), pp. 245-265.
S. H. Yang and C. T. Sun, Indentation Law for Composite Laminates, NASA CR-165460 (1981).
S. W. Tsai and E. M. Wu, “A general theory of strength for anisotropic materials,” J. Compos. Mater., 5, No. 1, 58-80 (1971).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 431-458, May-June, 2010.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghelli, D., Minak, G. Numerical analysis of the effect of membrane preloads on the low-speed impact response of composite laminates. Mech Compos Mater 46, 299–316 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11029-010-9147-9
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11029-010-9147-9