Impact behaviour of thermoplastic composite laminates under severe conditions

This paper deals with composite laminated structures based on a thermoplastic polyurethane and reinforced with woven glass fabrics. In order to verify potential applications of these laminates under low temperature conditions, samples with various thickness and obtained by traditional film stacking and compression molding technologies, were analyzed not only at room temperature but also at -25 and -50 °C by falling dart tests, by setting an initial impact energy such to ensure a complete perforation. Impact results, reported in terms of typical load and energy curves, and visual inspections of both struck and rear side of each samples emphasized the effect of temperature and laminate thickness on damage mechanisms faced by the impacted samples.