Micro and macroscopic characterization of A-SMC under high speed tensile test

Advanced Sheet Molding Compound (A-SMC) is a serious composite material candidate for structural automotive parts. It has a thermoset matrix and consists of high weight content of glass fibers (50% in mass) compared to standard SMC with less than 30% weight fiber content. During crash events, structural parts are heavily exposed to high rates of loading and straining. This work is concerned with the development of an advanced experimental approach devoted to the micro and macroscopic characterization of A-SMC mechanical behavior under high-speed tension. High speed tensile test are achieved using servo-hydraulic test equipment in order to get required high strain rates up to 100 s -1 . Local deformation is measured through a contactless technique using a high speed camera. Numerical computations have led to an optimal design of the specimen geometry and the experimental damping systems have been optimised in terms of thickness and material properties. These simulations were achieved using ABAQUS explicit finite element code. The developed experimental methodology is applied for two types of A-SMC: Randomly Oriented fibers (RO) and Highly Oriented fibers (HO) plates. In the case of HO samples, two tensile directions were chosen: HO-0° (parallel to the Mold Flow Direction (MFD)) and HO-90° (perpendicular to the MFD). High speed tensile tests results show that A-SMC behavior is strain-rate dependent although the young’s modulus remains constant with increasing strain rate. In the case of HO-0°, the stress damage threshold is shown an increase of 63%, when the strain rate varies from quasi-static (0.001 s -1 ) to 100 s -1 .