Evaluation of material properties and internal damage within CFRP and CFRP/Al sandwich panels due to impact loading

In the present paper, damage development within Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminates and CFRP/Aluminum (Al) honeycomb core sandwich panels by impact loading was evaluated, and change in material properties due to the damage development was investigated. Falling weight impact tests, 3-point bending tests and cross-sectional observation were carried out. As results, it is found that falling rate of bending elastic modulus due to internal damage in the laminate only is lower than that in the upper face-sheet of the sandwich panel, and that difference in the falling rate between them becomes maximum at the impact energy of 5.1 J. As a result of investigating the relationship between reduction in bending elastic modulus and internal damage development, the reduction is caused by delamination within CFRP laminates mainly. Since total length of cracks in CFRP/Al honeycomb core sandwich panels is smaller than that in the laminates only, the sandwich panels have high impact tolerance because of absorption of impact energy by damaging Al honeycomb core.