Effect of Uniaxial Fatigue Aging and Fabric Orientation on Low Impact Velocity Response of Glass Fibers/Elium Acrylic Composite Laminates

Impact resistance is one of the most critical features of composite structures, and therefore, its examination for a new material has a fundamental importance. This paper is devoted to the characterization of the fully recyclable thermoplastic ELIUM acrylic resin reinforced by glass fabric woven, which belongs to a new category of materials requiring advanced testing before their application in responsible elements of engineering structures. Its high strength, low weight as well as low production cost give excellent opportunities for its wide application in the automotive industry as a replacement of the thermoset-based laminates. The study presents an experimental work concerning the effect of damage due to low and high cyclic fatigue aging of two groups of specimens, first with the woven fabric orientations of [0°/90°](4) and secondly with [45°/45°](4), on the low impact velocity properties. The impact resistance was measured in terms of load peak, absorbed energy, penetration threshold and damage analysis. The low velocity impact results indicate that the uniaxial cyclic loading (fatigue aging) of the material leads to the reduction of impact resistance, especially at the high impact energy levels. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Computed Tomography (CT) scan observations reveal that the damage area grows with the increase of both strain amplitude and impact energy.