Experimental investigation of large-scale high-velocity soft-body impact on composite laminates

High-performance aerospace laminated composite structures manufactured from carbon-fibre prepreg are very susceptible to delamination failure under in-flight impact conditions. Much testing has been conducted at small length scales and quasi-static strain-rates characterise the performance of different material systems loading scenarios. Testing this scale strain-rate is not representative conditions experienced by a laminate in real event. Full-scale also conducted, but much open literature due intellectual property constraints. prohibitively expensive involves complex mechanisms that cause difficulty analysis associated behaviour. A novel test presented which provides simple, affordable alternative full-scale invokes sufficient velocity be component failure. This design experimentally validated through series soft-body gelatine tests using light gas-gun facility. fractographic scanning-electron microscopy was undertaken examine microscopic behaviour, showing possible reduction crack mode-ratio during propagation.