Research on dynamic responses of glass fiber composite laminates during ice breaking by falling body

Objectives This research aims to analyze the failure behavior and dynamic response of composite laminates when a polar underwater vehicle collides with ice layers during its ascent operation..

Methods With glass fiber composite laminates as the research object, combined with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) micro-damage characterization method, the interlaminar delamination damage state of composite laminates is observed and analyzed.. Then, a composite damage failure model based on the Chang-Chang criterion and cohesive element analysis methods were employed to numerical simulate and analyze the damage behaviors of the laminates during ice-breaking.

Results The research results indicate that the numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental results, verifying the reliability of the numerical simulation model for ice-breaking by composite laminates. The increase of the initial collision energy leads to a rise in the damage level, maximum collision force, deformation, and energy absorption of composite laminates. The dissipation of collision energy mainly comes from the energy absorbed due to the deformation and destruction of the ice layer, and the energy absorbed by the ice layer is significantly greater than the energy absorbed by the composite laminates due to matrix cracking and delamination damage caused by mismatched deformation at the boundaries.

Conclusions Based on the damage characteristics of composite materials under ice-breaking loads, it is evident that the design should reinforce the connection boundaries of composite structures to inhibit the initiation and propagation of delamination at the boundaries. This research provides a reference for the design of composite structures for polar vessels under ice-breaking loading.