Impact damage and post impact residual strength of pultruded composite beams

This paper reports detailed results about impact damage and residual failure behavior of some glassfibre/polyester pultrusion structures. The impact aspects studied include the damage analysis and the impact behavior of these shapes. The influence of test parameters such as impact velocity and impactor size was emphasized as well as the type of damage observed. Four-point flexural tests where performed on box and ‘U’-beam sections in order to determine their post-impact residual strength. The acoustic emission was used to follow the evolution of damage during flexural tests. Several types of failure mode were observed on damaged and undamaged specimen. A strong correlation between the profile geometry and the post impact failure mode of these beams was found.