Impact Behaviour and Damage Analysis of Laminated Composites Made of Glass Fibres/Nano-Reinforced Thermoplastic Matrix

Abstract

A laminate composite based on the new Elium® acrylic matrix and glass fibres has been prepared by an infusion process at ambient temperature in order to replace thermoset-based laminate composites with an equivalent recyclable thermoplastic-based composite. In order to enhance the impact resistance of the composite, the acrylic resin has been toughened by adding different amounts of acrylic tri-block copolymers (Nanostrength®). The resulting composite plates were subjected to low-velocity impact tests at different impact energies and temperatures. Tomographic observations have been performed on impacted samples, in order to analyse the effect of all-acrylic block copolymers concentrations, temperatures and incident energy on the damage process in the composites. The low-velocity impact results indicate that the addition of Nanostrength enhances the impact resistance, especially at high-impact energy levels. When the test temperature decreases, both unfilled laminates and those filled with Nanostrength exhibit a large impact resistance characterized by the return of impactor for all the impact energies. Tomographic observations reveal that the damage area increases with both the impact energy and the temperature.