Carbon-fibre/epoxy-matrix composites used in aerospace and vehicle applications are often susceptible to critical loading conditions and one example is impact loading. The present paper describes a detailed experimental and numerical investigation on the relatively low-velocity (i.e. <10 m/s) impact behaviour of such composite laminates. In particular, the effects of the geometry of the impactor have been studied and two types of impactor were investigated: (a) a steel impactor with a hemispherical head and (b) a flat-ended steel impactor. They were employed to strike the composite specimens with an impact energy level of 15 J. After the impact experiments, all the composite laminates were inspected using ultrasonic C-scan tests to assess the damage that was induced by the two different types of impactor. A three-dimensional finite-element (FE) model, incorporating a newly developed elastic-plastic damage model which was implemented as a VUMAT subroutine, was employed to simulate the impact event and to investigate the effects of the geometry of the impactor. The numerical predictions, including those for the loading response and the damage maps, gave good agreement with the experimental results.

航空航天和车辆应用中使用的碳纤维/环氧树脂基复合材料通常易受关键载荷条件的影响，其中一个例子就是冲击载荷。本文描述了有关此类复合层压板相对较低的速度（即<10 m / s）冲击性能的详细实验和数值研究。特别是，已经研究了冲击器几何形状的影响，并研究了两种类型的冲击器：（a）具有半球形头部的钢质冲击器和（b）端部扁平钢质冲击器。它们被用来以15 J的冲击能量冲击复合材料样品。冲击试验后，所有复合材料层压板均使用超声波C扫描测试进行检查，以评估两种不同类型的冲击器所引起的损伤。一个三维有限元（FE）模型，结合了一个新开发的弹塑性损伤模型，该模型被实现为VUMAT子例程，用于模拟撞击事件并研究撞击器几何形状的影响。数值预测，包括载荷响应和损伤图的预测，与实验结果吻合良好。