Zahra Mostafavi Mousavi - Department of Aerospace Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Hossein Hosseini Toudeshky - Department of Aerospace Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

In this paper the low-velocity impact response of laminated composites is investigated using an explicit finite element software. Accurate modeling of impact is based on appropriate selection of elements, failure criteria, type of damage analysis and contact modeling. Comparison between existing experiments performed on composites and numerical results in this paper indicates that the cohesive formulation is able to capture the complex delamination mechanism due to impact loading.

Impact, Laminated composite, cohesive zone, Tiebreak contact