Damage tolerance of an impacted composite laminate

Composites are known to be vulnerable to out-of-plane loading such as impact. Investigating the residual properties of the laminate as a function of damage detection is the main purpose of impact damage tolerance design in aeronautics. As a good alternative to experimental campaigns, numerical approaches would lead to saving of time. The model developed in Institut Clément Ader over the last years enables representation of behavior of composite laminates subjected to low velocity/low energy impact - including permanent indentation - and Compression After Impact. Damage such as permanent indentation, fiber failures, matrix cracks and delamination are taken into consideration at each step thanks to a discrete ply modelling. The work presented here deals with the use of this model to make a composite laminate design optimization according to impact damage tolerance design. A method to improve optimization by reducing computation time is also proposed, based on a “best candidates” selection.