Experimental study of temperature effects on composite laminates subjected to multi-impacts

Literature reports several works about the effect of temperature on the impact response of composite laminates, but very few studies can be found in terms of multi-impacts performance. Therefore, a systematic study reveals to be necessary. For this purpose, Glass Fibre Reinforced Composites (GFRP) subjected to single and multi-impact events with the same total energy (1 J and 3 J) were analysed. Experimental tests were performed using a drop weight-testing machine and three different temperatures (room temperature, 60 °C and 90 °C) were selected taking account the Tg of the resin. It was verified that the temperature has negligible influence for higher impact energies, while a strong effect occurs for lower energies. Finally, the number of impacts to failure is very dependent of the temperature, which is explained by its influence on the global properties of the matrix.