Abstract:
The carbon/aramid hybrid fiber reinforced composite laminates were used here as skins to design corrugated sandwich structures, which were fabricated by vacuum assisted resin infusion (VARI) process. Low-speed impact tests were conducted by three levels of energy, 60 J, 80 J and 100 J, and compression after impact tests were then carried out on these structures. Later, non-destructive testing techniques, including ultrasonic C-scan and industrial CT tomography, were applied to analyze the damage mechanism. The effects of hybrid modes on the low-speed impact properties and post-impact residual compression strength of the structures were investigated. The results show that at lower impact energy, the energy absorption of the corrugated sandwich structures is basically not affected by the fiber stacking sequence of the skins, but the dent depth decreases with the increase of carbon-fiber layers on the surface. By increasing the impact energy, the corrugated sandwich structure with inter-layer hybrid skins exhibits better impact performance because fiber fracture and interlayer delamination mainly occur between the external layers but larger damage area. On the other hand, the corrugated sandwich structure with sandwich-like hybrid skins can absorb more energy by penetration of the skins in small area. In conclusion, better post-impact compression capacity can be achieved for carbon/aramid hybrid fiber reinforced corrugated sandwich structures by the adoption of inter-layer or sandwich-like hybrid skin designs.