Experimental Investigation into the Behaviour of FMLs Containing Nanoparticles under Repeated Low-velocity Impact

GLARE is a kind of fiber-metal composites in which aluminum alloy sheets are used, along with composite laminates with glass reinforcements. In this paper, Glare FMLs were subjected to repeated low-velocity impact loading with an energy of 150 J. Repeated low-velocity impacts were applied using a drop-weight testing machine. To fabricate testing specimens, 2024-T3 aluminum alloy plates with a thickness of 1 mm as the face-sheets as well as the core made of the glass-epoxy composite were used. The epoxy glass laminate used also consisted of five layers of E-type single-sided glass fibers in the epoxy resin. Besides, 99.9% purity silica nanoparticles were added to the base material. To investigate the effect of adding nanoparticles on the behavior of FMLs under repeated low-velocity impacts, silica nanoparticles with a weight percentage of 0 to 4% were added to the matrix of the fabricated samples. The experimental results showed that the sample with 1% nanoparticles had better performance in terms of impact resistance so that after five loads, it was not seriously damaged; however, the perforation phenomenon occurred for samples with 3% and 4% nanoparticles in the second impact load.