Issue 48

C.A.C.P. Coelho et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 48 (2019) 411-418; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.48.39 411 Impact response of laminate cylindrical shells Carlos A.C.P. Coelho, Fábio V.P. Navalho ESTA, Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Abrantes, Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Tomar, Portugal cccampos@ipt.pt , fabionavalho@gmail.com P.N.B. Reis C-MAST, Depart. of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal preis@ubi.pt , http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5203-3670 A BSTRACT . Composite laminates subjected to low-velocity impact events on the through-thickness direction are conveniently studied and disseminated in the open literature. However, in terms of laminate cylindrical shells this subject is less common. Therefore, the main goal of the present work is to study the impact response of laminate composite cylindrical shells composed by different type of fibres. For this purpose, laminates with different configurations (6C, 2C+2K+2C and 2C+2G+2C), where the “number” represents the number of layers used and C=Carbon, K=Kevlar and G=Glass fibre layers, were analysed in terms of static and impact strength. It is possible to conclude that both static and impact performance are strongly influenced by the shells’ configuration. In terms of compressive static strength, the Kevlar hybrid shells present values 53.2% higher than the 6C shells, while the glass hybrid shells present values 17.3% lower. The impact analyses shows, regardless the similarity of the maximum loads for all configurations, that Kevlar hybrid shells achieved the highest elastic recuperation and the glass hybrid shells the maximum displacement. K EYWORDS . Impact strength; Composites; Cylindrical shells; Mechanical testing. Citation: Coelho, C.A.C.P., Navalho, F.V.P., Reis, P.N.B., Impact response of laminate cylindrical shells, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 48 (2019) 411-418. Received: 15.12.2018 Accepted: 21.01.2019 Published: 01.04.2019 Copyright: © 2019 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION omposite materials, day after day, are increasingly replacing the traditional metallic materials in several engineering applications, and this tendency will continue as consequence of their high stiffness and strength, low weight, adjustable properties, competitive cost, good static and dynamic properties, good resistance to corrosion and simplified fabrication. C