Abstract: Delamination between face sheets and core is one of the most common damage mode of carbon-fiber sandwich panels under impact loading, which seriously affects structural safety. Firstly, short-Kevlar-fibers were used for toughening the interface of carbon-fiber/aluminum-honeycomb sandwich panel. Secondly, low velocity impact and compression after impact tests were conducted for plain and toughened specimens. The residual compression strength, energy absorption and failure mode were compared. Finally, the strains of plain and toughened specimens during compression after impact test were obtained by digital image correlation (DIC). The results show that short-Kevlar-fiber toughening is capable to effectively increase the impact damage resistance of carbon-fiber/aluminum-honeycomb sandwich panel, and the damage threshold load of toughened specimens is signifi-cantly higher than that of plain specimens. Compared with the plain specimens, the residual compression strength values after impact of toughened specimens are increased by 2.68%, 9.24%, 4.65% and 11.13%, respectively, under four different impact energies. Meanwhile the energy absorption values of toughened specimens are increased by 69.09%, 52.88%, 55.03% and 101.70%, respectively. Furthermore, DIC observations were used to investigate the toughening effects of short-Kevlar-fibers and the strengthening mechanism.