Analysis of impact damage and residual static strength in improved CFRP

Although reinforced plastics are more and more used for structures of aircraft, spacecraft and other vehicles for transportation which could be easily impacted during manufacturing and use, impact damage is expected to greatly reduce the load–carrying capacity of these materials. This paper reports the results of two different sets of falling weight impact experiments performed on 'old' and improved thermosetting carbon fibre composites for obtaining residual tensile and compressive strength, respectively. Impact damage was observed with NDT techniques. During the strength tests acoustic emission was monitored. Tensile tests were specially made for analysing the instrumented impact tester results and NDT for finding slight impact damage. Compressive tests gave the material with the best behaviour after impact.