Modeling and progressive damage analysis of hybrid UD/PW composites under low-velocity impact

This study investigates the low-velocity impact (LVI) damage mechanisms of hybrid carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates comprising unidirectional (UD) and plain-woven (PW) plies under different energy levels (17.0, 34.5 and 50.0 J). The proposed model was developed by coupling finite element analysis with instrumented drop-weight experiments to validate intralaminar and interlaminar progressive failure analysis. The intralaminar model implemented via a user-defined material subroutine (VUMAT), integrates UD and PW constitutive descriptions and employs a fiber-aligned meshing technique that rotates elements along local fiber directions. The interlaminar model implemented Abaqus built-in zero-thickness cohesive elements to simulate delamination initiation and propagation at ply interfaces. To validate the internal damage morphology, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scanning was introduced and compared with simulation predictions. The simulation results demonstrate excellent agreement with experimental observations in terms of peak impact force and energy absorption, with the proposed fiber-aligned meshing technique achieving an average error reduction of 20.5% for peak force and 78.9% for energy absorption compared to conventional methods. Additionally, the model improves crack prediction accuracy and computational efficiency compared with conventional methods. This approach enables accurate optimization of hybrid composite architectures for aerospace and civil impact-resistant designs.