Intermediate Velocity Impact Response of Carbon/Epoxy Composites with Polycarbonate Facing

Woven fabric composites are increasingly being used in composite structures for applications in the aircraft, marine, and automotive industries. With emerging low-cost processing techniques for composite materials, the role of fabric architectures in sustaining low, intermediate, and high velocity impact loads is a subject of interest. An example of a low-cost process is the out-of-autoclave, vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) technique. The present study evaluates the intermediate velocity impact response of two commonly used structural carbon fabric laminates produced from plain and 2/2 twill woven fabrics, processed using VARTM. A series of impact tests have been performed on the all plain, all twill and hybrid plain-twill weave carbon/epoxy laminates. All laminates studied were covered with a polycarbonate facing in order to enhance the impact resistance of the carbon/epoxy laminates. The perforation mechanism, ballistic limit, and damage evolution of each laminate has been studied. The results from the experiments are reported.