Impact failure characteristics in sandwich structures. Part II: Effects of impact speed and interfacial strength

In this paper, we describe the second part of an experimental investigation concentrating on the study of the effects of impact speed and interfacial bond strength on the dynamic failure of model sandwich structures. Results show that even small variations in impact speed and bond strength substantially influence the initiation behavior of delamination (location and nucleation time) and lead to substantially different inter-layer crackspeed histories. These changes in inter-layer failure history influence the timing, sequence and final extent of subsequent intra-layer damage within the sandwich structures