Parametric study of low velocity impact analysis on composite tubes

Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering."May 2006."As explicit finite element codes improve and advanced material models become available, such tools find more widespread application in many industries. This thesis reports the research study of the low velocity impact simulation on carbon reinforced polymer epoxy composite tube using nonlinear explicit finite element software LS-Dyna. Validation of the experimental results is done with the proposed finite element model in LS-Dyna. A finite element model is implemented on quadratic stress based global failure progressive damage formulation to model the response and damage progression through carbon epoxy tube. Belytschko-Tsay shell quadrilateral shell element is used to model the eight layer unidirectional lamina’s composite cylinder with [30/-30/90/90/30/-30/90/90] lay up configuration. Also parametric studies were done to find their effects on the low velocity impact damage process. Comparisons of the finite element simulations to the experimental data include degradation, as well as the time history responses. Results indicate that the general shapes of the force versus time curve histories are correlate well with the experimental test data results. Parametric study results are also co related with the results in the published literature and papers and good agreement was found between the simulation results and the published data. Parameters such as impactor velocity, lay-up configurations, boundary conditions on composite tube, and different impactor velocity were considered which affect the impact damage process. Thus this study work demonstrates the accuracy and effectiveness of finite element simulation of low velocity impact test on composite cylinder with LS-Dyna and predicting good simulation results with published data for various parameters