ABSTRACT
Fibre reinforced composite materials manufactured through the pultrusion technology are very popular for engineering applications due to their excellent inherent qualities and economic affordability. In the present study, the effects of the impactor mass upon the damage initiation and development of Glass Fibres Reinforced Pultruded Profiles subjected to low-velocity impacts are investigated. An experimental program on the effect of varying the impactor mass with a fixed radius on the impact response of the multi-layers pultruded composites was performed. The specimens were subjected to two different series of loading conditions to investigate the parameters that control the processes of the damage associated with such material. The first series of tests were conducted as per ASTM 7136 standard with the impact energy of 67J. The specimens in the second series of tests were subjected to the impacts with higher impact energies ranging from 60J to 360J. The impact characteristics and performance of the pultruded profiles were acquired from the tests and were compared to the analogous loading scenarios. The damage evaluation was introduced to compare the failure modes of the pultruded composites subjected to different impact energy levels. The results demonstrated that the level of damage increases with respect to the increase of initial impact energy up to the point at which the ultimate failure occurs. For a fixed type of impactor, the impact performance in terms of maximum impact load and energy absorption ratio decreases slightly with the increase of the impactor mass. The initial impact energy is the primary parameter that controls the damage tolerance characteristics of pultruded composites.
