Effects of impact loading rate on the delamination behavior of composite laminates

Abstract

Characterization of the mode I delamination fracture of carbon fiber/epoxy multidirectional laminates was carried out under a range of test rates up to 11.4m/s. With increasing the rate up to 0.1m/s, there was little differences in the delamination fracture behavior. However the maximum value of GIC decreased considerably with an increase of the rate beyond 1.0m/s.