An overall view on impact response of woven fabric composite plates

This paper presents an overall view on impact response of woven fabric composite plates made of E-glass as reinforcing material and epoxy resin as matrix material. A number of tests were performed under various incident impact energies ranging from approximately 4-45 J. Hence, it was possible to examine the damage process step by step from initiation of damage to final perforation. It is shown that the damage process of individual specimens can be reconstructed from comparing the corresponding load-deflection curves, energy profile diagram and images of damaged specimens. In addition to the load-deflection curves, variation of other impact parameters such as absorbed energy and velocity versus deflection or time are depicted. The correlation between those impact parameters and damage process is also constructed. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.