Determining effects of impact loading on residual strength of fiber-metal laminates with grid-characteristic numerical method

The Grid-Characteristic numerical Method(GCM)that is quite common in solving aero and hydrodynamic problems can also be applied for mechanics of solids.It allows to implement complex border and contact conditions,including the non-reflecting border and the destructible contact.Both this conditions are very important for the precise and effective modeling of LowVelocity Impacts(LVI)on fiber and Fiber-Metal Laminates(FML)and the resulting Barely Visible Impact Damage(BVID)that influences the residual strength of a composite aircraft part.BVID is the type of damage that is not visible by the naked eye and can be hardly detected by a standard ultrasound equipment that is used for regular maintenance.It can appear during any weak impacts like bird strike or hail.Determining its influence on the residual strength of the part is very important to define the priorities of development of ultrasound diagnostics.In this paper,the GCM was applied for a full cycle of loading of an FML aircraft cover part.The FML consisted of a Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer(CFRP)and a single titanium layer on the upper surface.The cycle of loading in a single calculation consisted of an LVI caused by a small striker and a comparatively slow compressive in-plane loading.Three-dimensional patterns of velocity and stress distributions over the time of calculation are given.Destruction patterns,obtained via the Hashin failure criterion are given and analyzed.

Model of fractured medium and nondestructive control of composite materials

Non-destructive testing of composites is an important issue in the modern aircraft industry.Composites are susceptible to the barely visible impact damage which can affect the residual strength of the material and occurs both during production and operation.The continuum model for describing the damaged zone is presented.The slip theory relations used for a continuous distribution of slip planes are applied.At the initial stage,the isotropic background model is used.This model allows the material slippage along the fractures based on the Coulomb friction law with the small viscous addition.In this regime,the govern system of equations becomes rigid.To overcome this difficulty,the explicit-implicit grid-characteristic scheme is proposed.The standard ultrasound diagnostic procedure of damaged composite materials is successfully simulated.Compared with the trivial free-surface fracture model,different reactions on the compression and stretch waves are registered.This approach provided an effective way for the simulation of complex dynamic behavior of damage zones.