An experimental and numerical study on the crush behaviour of hybrid unidirectional/woven carbon-fibre reinforced composite laminates

In composite aircraft structures, woven carbon-fibre reinforced plies are often used as the surface plies of a monolithic composite panel, made from unidirectional plies, to mitigate damage during drilling and provide a measure of impact damage resistance. This research presents, for the first time, a detailed experimental and numerical study on the crush behaviour of hybrid unidirectional/woven carbon-fibre reinforced composite laminates. Quasi-static crush tests are performed on composite specimens with two different trigger geometries; a bevel-trigger and a steeple-trigger. A computational model, which accounts for both interlaminar and intralaminar damage in hybrid unidirectional (UD)/woven composite laminates, implemented as a user subroutine in Abaqus/Explicit, was used. A comparison between experimental and numerical results confirms the computational tool's accuracy in predicting the energy absorption and damage mechanisms of hybrid specimens. The proposed approach could significantly reduce the extent of physical testing required in the development of crashworthy structures.