Experimental study of the influence of thickness and ply-stacking sequence on the compression after impact strength of carbon fibre reinforced epoxy laminates

It was observed that damage tolerance decreases as impact energy increases. In addition, thicker laminates show higher CAI strength due to higher bending stiffness. Furthermore, angle-ply laminates depict better performance in terms of damage tolerance. Finally, the results obtained demonstrate that introducing ply blocking had a negative effect on the damage resistance but, conversely, an improvement of the CAI strength.