Experimental and numerical investigation of contact laws for the rapid simulation of low-energy impacts on laminated composite plates

A computationally efficient model for the impact simulation of low energy impacts on composite laminated plate structures is developed, which combines a contact law with a new time domain spectral shear plate finite element. Various contact laws are numerically and experimentally investigated based on elastoplastic and fully-plastic indentation theory. The contact laws are correlated with quasi-static indentation test data performed on carbon/epoxy cross-ply laminates and with numerical results of a 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) indentation model with Hill failure criterion. The extracted contact laws are combined with a first-order shear plate time domain spectral finite element with explicit time integration. Obtained impact simulation results are compared with a 3-D continuum explicit FEA model and experimental results. The results demonstrate excellent accuracy of the present method, and drastically improved numerical simulation speed.