Impact damage modeling in laminated composite aircraft structures

Abstract Laminated composites have important and irreplaceable applications in modern aeronautical structures. They have extraordinary properties, like high strength, stiffness, and light weight. Nevertheless, a serious obstacle to more widespread use of these materials is their sensitivity to impact loads. As a consequence of that, impact damage initiation and growth in them are appearing, and must be controlled. In general, failures that occur in laminated composite structures can be intralaminar and interlaminar. To date, a lot of models for impact damage in laminates have been developed, with higher or lower accuracy. Those models can replace necessary real and expensive testing in laminated structures with some approximation. By using specialized software (under specified conditions), the damage parameters in laminate aircraft structures can be predicted and determined. With that technology,` numerical simulations of impact on certain laminates can be carried out, and the results obtained can be presented in the form of graphic damage distributions.