On the Behavior of Carbon and Kevlar Fibers in Cylindrical Composites Subjected to Low-velocity Impact: Experimental Observation and Numerical Analysis

High ratio of strength to weight in fiber reinforced polymer composites causes to their applications in many of the structures and components. In this study an experimental and numerical investigation on four composite cylinders’ response to low-velocity impact is carried out. The studied cylinders were considered to be carbon-only, kevlar-only, kevlar-outside/carbon-inside, and carbon-outside/kevlar-inside. The experimental impact test was applied on the samples using a drop-weight impact apparatus without initial velocity with a spherical steel impactor. In the numerical part, a finite element (FE) modeling technique has been used in ABAQUS software to investigate the impact behavior. In this paper, various types of modeling methods, meshing process and types of elements such as conventional shell, continuum shell and solid elements were discussed in the software. The issues of concern were the contact force, contact duration, and deflection of the specimens. It was found that kevlar fiber has more ability to absorb energy compared to carbon fiber and that the carbon-only specimen has the greatest contact force and the lowest deflection compared with the other samples. To validate the experimental data, they were compared with the results obtained from FE analysis and a strong concurrence was found between them.