Thermoelastic Investigation of Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Composites Using a Drop-Weight Impact Test

Composite materials are becoming more popular in technological applications due to the significant weight savings and strength offered by these materials compared to metallic materials. In many of these practical situations, the structures suffer from drop-impact loads. Materials and structures significantly change their behavior when submitted to impact loading conditions compared to quasi-static loading. The present work is devoted to investigating the thermal process in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) subjected to a drop test. A novel drop-weight impact test experiment is performed to evaluate parameters specific to 3D composite materials. A strain gauge rosette and infrared thermography are employed to record the kinematic and thermal fields on the composites’ surfaces. This technique is nondestructive and offers an extensive full-field investigation of a material’s response. The combination of strain and infrared thermography data allows a comprehensive analysis of thermoelastic effects in CFRP when subjected to impacts. The experimental results are validated using numerical analysis by developing a MATLAB® code to analyze whether the coupled heat and wave equation phenomenon exists in a two-dimensional polar coordinate system by discretizing through a forward-time central-space (FTCS) finite-difference method (FDM). The results show the coupling has no significant impact as the waves generated due to impact disappears in 0.015 s. In contrast, heat diffusion happens for over a one-second period. This study demonstrates that the heat equation alone governs the CFRP heat flow process, and the thermoelastic effect is negligible for the specific drop-weight impact load.