Towards the generation of controlled one-inch impact damage in thick CFRP composites for SHM and NDE validation

In this paper, an attempt has been made to conduct controlled low velocity impact experiments in quasi-isotropic carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites of increasing thicknesses to generate barely visible impact damage (BVID) that creates 1 '' impact damage diameter. Such impacted CFRP coupons with controlled damage diameter would serve in the future for validation of structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) damage detection methodologies. Various 2-mm, 4-mm and 6-mm thick quasi-isotropic CFRP composite plates having similar stacking sequence were manufactured in a compression molding machine. These plates were cut into numerous 6 '' x 4 '' coupons to be impacted in accordance with ASTM D7136 standard on a Dynatup impact testing machine. The goal of the experiments was to identify the combination of impactor mass, energy and momentum at which approximately 1 '' impact damage diameter could be produced for test coupons of increasing thicknesses. Interesting observations were made with respect to the size and shape of the impact damage as the thickness of the composite coupons was increased from 2-mm to 6-mm. Modified experiments were also conducted on 6-mm coupons to achieve close to 1 '' impact damage diameter. The greatest challenge in conducting these experiments was in the thick 4-mm and 6-mm coupons which did not display a predictable trend. Future work should focus on overcoming this challenge towards achieving a predictable impact damage size methodology.