High velocity impact tests on high temperature carbon-carbon composites

This paper describes the effect of high velocity impact on the structural integrity of advanced carbon-carbon (C/C) composites for high temperature applications. Impact tests have been performed on heated C/C composite samples at high temperature to establish correlations between the mechanical performances of the composites and different impact factors. Two tensile tests were also performed to investigate the residual strength of the high temperature C/C structures with the impact damage. In this work we present two new equations to predict the dimensionless damage areas of the C/C impacted at elevated temperatures. The impact resistance of the C/C composites is affected by the diameter of the projectile, the temperature and thickness of the C/C laminates and - more importantly - by the impact velocity. The residual strength of the damaged C/C composites increased by 47% after heating the samples from 25 °C to 1206 °C.