An integrated method for predicting damage and residual tensile strength of composite laminates under low velocity impact

An integrated approach is presented to analyze the whole process of damage initiation and development for composite laminates under impact loading as well as tensile loading after impact using the 3D progressive damage theory. The real impact damage status of composite laminates is employed to analyze the residual tensile strength instead of the artificial premises adopted by traditional methods. This integrated approach can not only improve the prediction accuracy of the ultimate strength but also avoid large numbers of experiments for obtaining the impact damage parameters. A parametric modeling program package based on the analytical method has been developed. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.