Improvement of Impact Damage Resistance of Epoxy-Matrix Composites Using Ductile Hollow Fibers

Fiber reinforced polymer structures typically respond very poorly to transverse impact events. In this study, some experimental investigations are performed on the low velocity impact behavior of unidirectional hollow, solid and hybrid (hollow/solid) polyester fiber composites. The materials are fabricated in a curved shape using filament winding method. The impact tests are applied on the simply supported specimens by a drop weight impact test apparatus at five levels of energy. To present a proper comparison on the results, the various densities of the materials are considered as normalizing coefficients. It is observed that in the hollow fiber composites cracks appear at an appreciably higher amount (93%) of impact energy than the solid ones.