Impact resistance of Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures with thin fibre reinforced polymer facesheets

Abstract

In order to investigate the impact resistance of the Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures skinned with thin fibre reinforced woven fabric composites, both drop-weight experimental work and meso-mechanical finite element modelling were conducted and the corresponding output was compared. Drop-weight impact tests with different impact parameters, including impact energy, impactor mass and facesheets, were carried out on Nomex honeycomb-cored sandwich structures. It was found that the impact resistance and the penetration depth of the Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures were significantly influenced by the impact energy. However, for impact energies that cause full perforation, the impact resistance is characterized with almost the same initial stiffness and peak force. The impactor mass has little influence on the impact response and the perforation force is primarily dependent on the thickness of the facesheet, which generally varies linearly with it. In the numerical simulation, a comprehensive finite element model was developed which considers all the constituent materials of the Nomex honeycomb, i.e. aramid paper, phenolic resin, and the micro-structure of the honeycomb wall. The model was validated against the corresponding experimental results and then further applied to study the effects of various impact angles on the response of the honeycomb. It was found that both the impact resistance and the perforation depth are significantly influenced by the impact angle. The former increases with the obliquity, while the latter decreases with it. The orientation of the Nomex core has little effect on the impact response, while the angle between the impact direction and the fibre direction of the facesheets has a great influence on the impact response.