Frictional contact/impact response of textile composite structures

The results of a detailed study of the frictional contact/impact response of axisymmetric textile composite structures are presented. The structures are assumed to consist of an arbitrary number of perfectly bonded layers of woven fabric or braided preforms. The material of each layer is assumed to be hyperelastic and the effect of geometric nonlinearity is included. The equations of motion of the structure are established in the current configuration and a displacement finite element model is used for the spatial discretization. A Coulomb friction model is used and the temporal integration is performed by using an explicit central difference scheme. Both the dynamic response and the sensitivity coefficients are evaluated. The sensitivity coefficients measure the sensitivity of the response to variations in the textile preform architecture and constituent properties, as well as to variations in the effective layer properties. Numerical results are presented for the frictional contact/impact response of a spherical cap made of textile (woven and braided) composite material, impacting a rigid surface. Results are compared with those of a spherical cap made of tape laminate. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.