IMPACT RESISTANCE OF COMPOSITE LAMINATED SANDWICH PLATES

Abstract

Investigated are the effects of face layup sequence and core density of a sandwich plate on the impact delamination area of the laminated facesheet. The sandwich plate is made of graphite/epoxy faces and Nomex honeycomb core. The size and shape of delamination due to impact at each interply location have been measured by the room temperature deply technique. The shape of the interply delamination under impact is, in general, found to be two-lobed. The shape exhibits very peculiar regularity under various experimental conditions. The quantitative measurement of delamination size has shown that the face layup with small relative orientation between adjacent plies and high density core are desirable in sandwich plates to reduce the impact delamination.