Investigations on damage resistance of carbon fiber composite panels toughened using veils

This research focused on how to improve damage resistance of carbon fiber laminates. It was carried out at Cranfield University Composites Centre, Milton Keynes, UK as an MSc by research thesis project. A series of low-cost composite laminates, with or without novel veils provided by Tenax, was manufactured using current aircraft carbon fiber preforms via vacuum infusion (VI) molding in this research. All the investigations on damage resistance of these panels were carried out according to the British Standard (BS ISO 18353:2009). Initial damage was induced using a falling weight apparatus mounting a 16 mm hemispherical tip. C-scan and Micrograph were employed to reveal damage characteristics. Finally, both compression after impact (CAI) and plain compression strength were experimented. The behaviors of these panels, including damage size, damage construction, residual compression strength, and compression strength reduction, were utilized to investigate how and to what extent the veils affected the damage resistance. The results show that using veils is an efficient method of improving the damage resistance of the laminates studied. Maximum 32% increase in residual compression strength is achieved via veils accompanying with 7% increase in cost.