A study on mechanical properties of carbon/phenolic composites

Carbon/phenolic (C/PH) composites have been widely used for impact protection and energy-absorption, the proper design of which require appropriate material characterization data and stress–strain relations suitable for wide range of strain-rate conditions. Firstly, sophisticated quasi-static and medium–high strain-rate compression tests are conducted to study the mechanical behaviors of C/PH composites, and one nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive model is proposed based on the experimental results. Light gas gun tests are subsequently conducted to derive the impact Hugoniot curve and high-pressure equation of state (EOS). Finally, the proposed material model and EOS are built into a cross-format centered difference scheme to preliminarily investigate the wave effects of C/PH composites. It is established that the viscoelastic model, the equation of state along with the 1-D difference code are very effective in capturing the mechanical properties of C/PH composites over a wide range strain-rates.