Response and damage characteristics of composite laminates under high-energywide-area blunt impact

High-energy wide-area blunt impact (HEWABI) can lead to severe internal damage to the composite aircraft, which is barely visible from the outside of fuselage and cause a significant threat to flight safety. High energy quasi-static loading tests were carried out on the laminates with different shapes of rigid impactors and rubber impactors, then the finite element simulation models based on continuum damage mechanics (CDM) were developed. The results show that the established simulation analysis models can effectively predict the response and damage of the laminated panels under rigid or rubber impactors. When the load reaches 40 kN, severe delamination damages will occur in the laminated panel for the rigid impactors. On the other hand, no damage can be observed at 90 kN for the rubber impactors, which can be attributed to the significant deformation of rubber impactors and the reduced local contact loads. The shape of rigid impactors has great effect on the damage to laminated panels, while the shape of the rubber impactors has almost no impact on the damages.