The difficulties presented by inertial disturbances in the testing of fibre reinforced composite materials at elevated strain rates necessitated the development of a technique for the prediction of high strain rate material property data. These data have been used in a finite element analysis to simulate impact behaviour of a random glass epoxy composite. High strain rate properties obtained by extrapolating results of experiments conducted at low to intermediate strain rates were used in the finite element analysis of a simple three-point bend beam impact. Three point bend impact tests were performed on the laminates, and comparisons were made of the results predicted from this analysis and actual impact test data.
The results show that the finite element model created may be used to predict the behaviour of random glass/epoxy laminates. However, the inclusion of flexible post-failure degradation rules to allow for progressive damage, will improve the accuracy of the analysis.
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