Stacking Sequence Effects on Damage Onset in Composite Laminate Subjected to Low Velocity Impact

In this paper, the effects of the stacking sequence on the mechanical behavior of composite laminates subjected to low velocity impacts is investigated, taking into account inter-laminar and intra-laminar damage onset and evolution. The response of the composite laminate configurations characterized by different stacking sequences subjected to low velocity impacts with different impact energies have been studied to estimate the influence on the load-time, displacement-time and energy-time histories. A Finite element (FE) model has been used to numerically simulate the behavior of the composite plates. ABAQUS/EXPLICT FE environment has been considered for the implementation and the analyses and cohesive elements have been adopted to model the inter-laminar damage formation and evolution in the analyzed composite plate.