Analysis of the effect of impact damage on the repairability of composite panels

The present paper aims to provide further understanding of the behaviour of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) composite panels under high velocity impact and develop design guideline for repair of damaged composite panels in order to increase the aircraft survivability. This work consists of two parts: part one is a combination of experimental investigation and numerical simulation to evaluate the impact of a woven CFRP laminate which were subjected to selected impact velocities (100 m/s-500 m/s) in order to evaluate the induced impact damage in two different thicknesses of CFRP composite panels (4.125 mm and 2.625 mm). In part two a finite element model is developed to design a guideline for repairing of a composite panel. In order to achieve this an optimised repair models with variable parameters such as number of steps and length of steps in the stepped lap joints are investigated. The penetration process and also change of kinetic energy absorption characteristics have been used to validate the finite element results. Finite element results were in close agreement with experimental data obtained from different sources.