Influence of temperature on the impact behavior of woven-ply carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites

Experimental investigations were carried out to determine the low velocity impact behavior of woven carbon fabric/polyphenylene sulfide (CF/PPS) laminates at room temperature (RT) and high-temperature (95 °C and 125 °C). The relationships of impact response and damage with temperature were established with the aid of macro- and micro-scopic observations and C-scan inspections. The analysis on impact behavior of CF/PPS composite at RT indicated that increasing incident impact energy led to increased low velocity impact-induced damage initiation and propagation. The results revealed that temperature increasing could lead to evident decrease of stiffness, energy based damage degree and delamination area, as well as evident increase of the permanent indentation. Take the specimens at 15 J and 125 °C as example, the permanent indentation and delamination were increased and decreased by 40.2% and 57.45%, respectively. The temperature influence on impact responses was closely associated with the plastic deformation of matrix and its coupling effect with the resin-rich regions and fiber-bridging mechanism that induced by the specific weave architecture. It has specified that the failure mechanism was transformed from brittle manner to ductile manner with increasing the temperature, which was characterized by the variation of intra- and inter-laminar cracks as well.