Experimental study of basalt fiber/steel hybrid laminates under low-velocity impact

Due to their excellent impact resistance, fibre-metal laminates are widely utilised in modern engineering industries such as the construction of aircraft, vehicles and ships. In this study, the low-velocity impact characteristics of basalt fibre/steel hybrid laminates with different lay-up structures were studied with a drop hammer. This was done through a series of low-velocity impact experiments with different hammer head shapes and impact energies. It can be seen from the results that the impact behaviour of hybrid laminates largely depends on the shape of the hammer head, impact energy and lay-up structure. The sharper the hammer head, the smaller the peak impact load and the greater the displacement. When the hammer head penetrates the laminate, apparent shear failure occurs under the impact of the flat hammer head. Petal-like fractures caused by tensile tear failure occur under the impact of the hemispherical and conical hammer head. Low-energy impacts may result in large plastic deformation, delamination and debonding in the layers. High-energy impacts may also lead to fibre and metal fractures as well as perforation damage. Consequently, the laminate absorbs the energy from overall deformation under low-energy impact, but mainly absorbs the energy generated by various fibre and metal fractures under high-energy impact.