An experimental study on the failure mechanism of local-strengthening glass fiber reinforced polymer T-joints under/after the low-velocity impact loading

Abstract

In this study, an experimental methodology, consisting of low-velocity impact (LVI) and quasi-static compressive test, is conducted to investigate the performance and failure mechanism of GFRP T-joints, fabricated by vacuum-assisted resin infusion process (VARI), when subjected to out-of-plane LVI loading at the corner. Further, the effect of LVI loading on the reduction of strength is analyzed by the tensile test after LVI. In order to improve the strength of the GFRP T-joints, one layer of stainless-steel wire net (SSWN) is inserted into the corner of the T-joints structure. The experimental results indicate that the addition of SSWN decreases the damaged area of delamination in the web, meanwhile, connecting the nearby GFRP layers to avoid the structure failure suddenly, which improves its performance of tensile test after LVI.