Low-velocity drop weight impact behavior of Twaron® fabric investigated using experimental and numerical simulations

Abstract Low-velocity drop weight impact experiments of plain-woven Twaron® CT 612 at an impact energy of 15, 20, 30 J are carried out on a 9250HV drop weight impact tester. Specially treated specimens are designed and used to deal with boundary conditions because the fabric is too flexible and cannot be fixed precisely. Experimental results reaffirm that TwaronⓇ is an impact-rate-sensitive material and that a greater initial impact energy resulted in a larger breaking load, greater failure strain, larger energy absorption and shorter contact duration to the fabric in the impact process., The commercial code ANSYSⓇ-AUTODYN is employed for impact FE analysis on a physically based impact model which is designed basing on the fabric's geometry parameters and the experimental set-up. The dynamic mechanical parameters of TwaronⓇ is analyzed and applied to FE model to describe the rate-sensitive mechanical properties through a three-element spring-dashpot model. Standard earth gravity is applied to the impact model to reflect the impact process realistically as well. The results indicate that a remarkably close agreement is obtained between the simulation and experimental results in various impact scenarios. Thus, the energy absorption mechanisms and stress distributions during the impact process are clarified. The influence of specimen shape and size are also analyzed systemically. These results indicate that the present experimental set-up and the developed fabric geometry model are effective at investigating many additional mechanical problems in textile fabrics and/or flexible material structures.