Soft body impact on laminated composite materials

A technique used to perform soft body impact tests has been described in this paper. Soft body impactor made of four parts water to one part of bovine hide gelatine was used to substitute bird. A series of tests on plates of different systems of CFRP materials have been conducted. Panels of each material system were impacted at velocities between 200 m/s and 330 m/s. Each panel was impacted only once, regardless of damage situation. Ultrasonic C-scan was used to interpret damage after impact. Damage modes are summarised and materials have been compared and ranked according to their impact behaviour.