Experimental assessment of low velocity impact damage in flax fabrics reinforced biocomposites by coupled high-speed imaging and DIC analysis

Karthik Ram Ramakrishnan, Stéphane Corn, Nicolas Le Moigne, Patrick Ienny, Pierre Slangen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Structural composite materials with good impact resistance are required in several industrial sectors to design parts submitted to crashes or falling objects. This work investigates the impact behaviour of flax fabrics-epoxy and commingled flax-polypropylene (PP) fibres composite plates manufactured using compression moulding process. An instrumented drop tower was used to conduct low velocity impact tests at several energies and high-speed imaging coupled with DIC analysis was used to assess the damage evolution. A crack-tracking algorithm was implemented in ImageJ to identify the initiation and propagation of cracks. A comparison of the force-displacement histories and high-speed camera results for both composites were used to identify the different modes of damage and the critical energy for complete penetration. The proposed method is able to depict the successive events that lead to the breakage of biocomposites and it will be a valuable tool to investigate the impact behaviour of other materials as well.

Original languageEnglish
Article number106137
Number of pages14
JournalComposites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
Volume140
Early online date1 Oct 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021
Publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This project was funded by the European Union ’s Horizon 2020 Programme (HERMES project, grant agreement n ° 636520 ). KRR also acknowledges Mr. Jere Ahkiola for his assistance with profilometer and optical microscope imaging.

Keywords

  • A. Natural Fibers
  • A. Polymer-matrix composites (PMCs)
  • B. Impact behaviour
  • C. Damage mechanics

Publication forum classification

  • Publication forum level 2

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ceramics and Composites
  • Mechanics of Materials

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