Residual Strength Validation of a Composite Stiffened Panel Virtually Impacted

Most modern structural system designs rely on a damage tolerance philosophy, which means that a structure can withstand some damage without failure.The residual strength of a structure, i.e. the load that a damaged structure can still carry without failure, can be significantly affected by the presence of a crack or a damaged area and is usually substantially lower than the strength of the undamaged structure [1].In the study presented in this paper MSC.Nastran sol700 explicit solver has been used to simulate different impact conditions on a stiffened composite panel [2], . This has allowed estimating and analysing the damage effects on the matrix and fibers of the composite panel. The virtual damaged panel has been loaded in a non-linear implicit simulation using MSC.Nastran sol400 solution to predict the residual strength [3–6]. The simulation results were in good agreement with experimental tests.