Experimental and numerical analysis of low to medium velocity impact of a woven fabric composite beam with injection moulded short fibre composite ribs

Progressive Damage Analysis (PDA) in the ABAQUS code is dedicated to the simulation of damage initiation and propagation in laminated composite material. Even though, this method has not been intended for simulation of failure and damage progression in woven and short fiber composites, researchers widely use this tool for this type of materials. In this paper a hybrid component, a molded woven fabric beam which short fiber composite material is injected on, is studied under bending load. In addition, the experimental results which are extracted from both quasi-static and a rate of 127 mm/sec tests demonstrate a rate dependent behavior of the component. Both quasi-static and medium rate bending problems are simulated using PDA and a user-defined subroutine in ABAQUS and the results are compared. The effect of energy release rate and viscous coefficient on the simulation results and also the limitations of PDA applications for rate dependent composite material are investigated.