The response of pin-clamped carbon fibre-reinforced plastics composite sandwich beams with polyvinylchloride foam core under bending impact

The dynamic response of pin-clamped composite sandwich beam in terms of face-sheet effect with polyvinylchloride foam core subjected to bending impact loading was investigated in this paper. Composite sandwich beams with three different unidirectional skin layups of [0](4), [45](4) and [90](4) and two types of face-sheet thickness of 1 ([0](4)) and 2 ([0](8)) mm were fabricated. An explicit code, VUMAT, is written and implemented in ABAQUS/Explicit. The micro-computerised tomography scanning was used to detect adhesive layer failure. The ply angle orientation of face sheets plays an important role in the failure mechanism of the sandwich beam under bending loads. Although it is known that the fibre angle in the direction perpendicular to the bending direction is more stiff and strength, damage tolerances under bending impact loads of beams with other fibre angles were determined. In addition, as the number of layers increased, failure mechanism and load-carrying capacity of composite face sheets changed completely for increasing bending stiffness. This research provides fundamental information about the change of the failure mechanisms as the fibre angle and thickness of the face sheet were changed and in terms of interpretation with the help of finite elements using different failure criteria.