Original Article

An experimental investigation on
the low-velocity impact response
of carbonaramid/epoxy hybrid
composite laminates

Journal of Reinforced Plastics

and Composites
0(0) 113
! The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0731684416680893
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Sun Ying, Tang Mengyun, Rong Zhijun, Shi Baohui and Chen Li

Abstract
In the current study, the low-velocity impact response of hybrid-laminated composites based on the twill woven fabrics
was investigated experimentally. The following five different types of carbonaramid/epoxy hybrid laminates were
produced and tested, (a) two types of interply hybrid, (b) two types of sandwich-like interply hybrid, and (c) intraply
hybrid. Non-hybrid carbon and aramid twill woven laminates were also tested for comparison. The effects of the hybrid
structure on the impact properties such as the peak load, the ductility index, and damage area were discussed. The
impact damage resistances of specimens were evaluated by comparing damage images taken from both the impacted and
the non-impacted surface. The damage and failure mechanisms were analyzed from the impact damage morphologies
using ultrasonic C-scan and three-coordinate measuring device. Under the same impact energies, the interply hybrid
laminates with carbon fabric on the impact surface have higher impact damage resistance. It can be concluded that placing
of high stiffness carbon fabric at highly stressed regions as reinforcement would result in enhanced properties, and the
damage tolerance performance of composites with interply hybrid structure are better than those of other hybrid
composites.

Keywords
Hybrid-laminated composites, aramid fiber, carbon fiber, twill woven, low-velocity impact properties

Introduction
Carbon berreinforced epoxy laminated composites
with superior specic strength and specic modulus
have become signicantly popular in recent years.
However, one of the major limitation is the low fracture
energy of carbon/epoxy composites just because both
carbon ber and epoxy are brittle. Investigations
showed that the large increase in fracture toughness
of matrix has translated very low to moderate increase
in toughness of its composites.13 Hybrid ber composites, which combine two or more types of ber
reinforcements, have been introduced to improve the
short of traditional ber reinforced polymer (FRP)
composites extensively used for highly loaded structures in many advanced engineering applications, such
as automotive, marine, and aviation industries. In addition, the properties of hybrid ber composites can be
tailored for specic applications by changing ber type,

hybrid structure, etc. It has been widely demonstrated

that the impact fracture toughness of polymer composites with brittle reinforcements, such as carbon or glass
ber, can be improved by mixing them with more ductile organic bers, such as aramid or polyester.49
Impact behavior and energy absorption of hybrid
laminate, which depend on the hybrid type and

Key Laboratory of Advanced Textile Composites (Ministry of Education),

Institute of Textile Composites, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin,
China
Corresponding author:
Tang Mengyun, Key Laboratory of Advanced Textile Composites
(Ministry of Education), Institute of Textile Composites, Tianjin
Polytechnic University, NO. 399 Binshui Road, Xiqing District, Tianjin
300387, China.
Email: istangmengyun@foxmail.com

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

hybrid structure, are important for their various

applications.1013 Naik et al.14 investigated the impact
behavior and post-impact compressive characteristics
of glasscarbon/epoxy interply woven hybrid composites with alternating stacking sequences. They found
that energy absorbed decrease with decreasing carbon
content. Hosur et al.15 studied the low-velocity impact
response of hybrid composites made of plain woven S2glass and twill woven carbonglass fabrics with SC-15
resin system. Their results show that there is considerable improvement in the load-carrying capability of
hybrid laminates as compared to carbon/epoxy laminates with reduction in stiness. Sayer et al.16 performed
investigation on the impact behavior of hybrid composite plates. They found that the perforation threshold of
hybrid composites with carbon fabric on the impact
surface is approximately 30% higher than those of
plates with glass fabric on the impact surface. Sarasini
et al.17 studied the eect of stacking sequences on the
damage progression in aramidbasalt hybrid laminates
under the drop-weight impact loading. Yang et al.18
presented experimental studies on the low-velocity
impact response of interply hybrid composites with
plain woven glass and carbon fabrics. Experimental
results show that hybrid composites can absorb more
energy in the impact event compared with non-hybrid
composites, and its perforation thresholds are
enhanced. While the impact behavior of interply
hybrid laminates has been investigated by many
researchers, the impact properties of intraply hybrid
laminates have not been studied extensively. Among a
few publications in this area, Park and Jang19 investigated the impact properties of aramidpolyethylene
intraply hybrid composites as a function of stacking
sequence and aramid ber content. Pegoretti et al.20
presented the tensile and impact behavior of both intraply and interply E-glass and polyvinyl alcohol woven
fabrics composites. It is found that the intraply hybrid
composites have better tensile and impact performance
than their interply counterparts. Dehkordi et al.21
investigated the impact properties of basaltnylon/
epoxy intraply hybrid plates subjected to dierent
impact energy. The results indicate that the impact
properties are depended on the content of nylon and
basalt. Whats more, the eect of fabric type on the

post-impact compression and tensile behavior of

carbonKevlar hybrid composites are investigated.22,23
Hybrid ber laminates can be classied as interply
hybrid and intraply hybrid depending on the geometric
pattern of ber arrangements. In this study, the lowvelocity impact properties of carbonaramid/epoxy
hybrid laminates based on the twill woven fabrics
were investigated. Two types of interply hybrid with
varying stacking sequences of dierent fabric layers
and the intraply hybrid specimens were produced
using resin transfer molding (RTM) process. Drop
weight impact tests were performed to determine the
eect of carbonaramid hybrid on such impact properties as the impact peak load, the absorbed energy, the
ductility index (DI) and the impact damage morphology. The damage modes and extent were inspected
and analyzed to evaluate the energy absorption
mechanisms.

Preparation of laminates specimens

Materials
The properties of carbon ber, aramid ber, and epoxy
resin are given in Table 1. The 3K carbon ber and the
1500D Kevlar49 were supplied by Toray Company,
Japan and DuPont Company, USA. The epoxy resin
system was JL-236 with hardener JL-239 (resin-tohardener in weight was 10:3) from Changshu Jiafa
Chemical Company, China. The structure parameters
of the single-layer twill woven fabrics are presented in
Table 2. The composite plates were manufactured by
laminating the twill woven fabrics using RTM process.
Three kinds of twill woven fabric are given in Figure 1.
In the hybrid fabrics, both warp yarns and ll yarns
were carbon ber and aramid ber alternately.

Specimen production
The ve dierent types of carbonaramid/epoxy hybrid
laminates were produced using same RTM system. Five
hybrid congurations were included: two types of interply hybrid (IE-C: seven layers of carbon fabrics and six
layers of aramid fabrics were alternatively stacked,
keeping carbon fabrics as outer layers; IE-K: seven

Table 1. Physical and mechanical properties of fibers and resin.

Trademark

Density (g/cm3)

Linear density

Tensile
strength (MPa)

Tensile
modulus (GPa)

Extension at
break (%)

T300
Kevlar49
JL-236

1.76
1.44
1.12

3K
1500D

3530
3000
81.70

230
112.40
2.81

1.50
2.40

Ying et al.

Table 2. Structure parameters of the twill woven fabrics.

Fabric

Linear density
Warp  Weft

PT  PW
(ends/cm)

Areal
density (kg/m2)

Thickness
(mm)

Carbon
Aramid
Carbonaramid

3K  3K
1500D  1500D
1500D  3K

6.5  6.5
6.5  6.5
6.5  6.5

0.270
0.244
0.253

0.40
0.38
0.40

Figure 1. Schematic of the twill woven fabrics.

Table 3. The configuration of seven samples.

Specimen

Hybrid structure

Layer configuration

Diagram

SI-C
SI-K
IE-C
IE-K
SA-C
SA-K
IA-CK

Single-carbon
Single-aramid
Inter-hybrid

[C13]
[K13]
[C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C]
[K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K/C/K]
[C3/K7/C3]
[K3/C7/K3]
[C-K]13

ggggggggggggg

ggggggg
gggggg
gggggg
ggggggg
Intraply hybrid

Sandwich-like Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

C: Carbon fabric; K: aramid fabric; C-K: carbonaramid intraply hybrid fabric.

layers of aramid fabrics and six layers of carbon fabrics

were alternatively stacked, keeping aramid fabrics as
outer layers), two types of sandwich-like interply
hybrid (SA-C: seven aramid layers at the center as
core and three carbon layers for each side of laminates
as skins; SA-K: seven carbon layers at the center as core
and three aramid layers for each side of laminates as
skins), and intraply hybrid (IA-CK). Not hybridized
carbon (SI-C: 13 carbon layers) and aramid (SI-K:
13 aramid layers) reinforced epoxy composites were
also manufactured as reference congurations. The
layer congurations of 13-ply twill woven fabrics reinforced composite plates with the similar ber volume
fraction are listed in Table 3. The specic structure parameters of laminates are presented in Table 4. The coupons with dimensions of 150 mm  100 mm  4 mm
(length  width  thickness) for testing were cut from
the 380 mm  180 mm  4 mm (length  width  thickness) rectangular composite laminates, as shown in
Figure 2.

Low-velocity impact testing

Low-velocity impact tests were carried out according to
ASTM D:7136 using Instron-Dynatup 9250 HV dropweight impact testing equipment, as illustrated in
Figure 3(a). The impactor nose has a hemispherical
shape with the diameter of 12.7 mm and the mass of
6.5 kg. The four corner of coupon were mounted to the
xture so the impact point was located at sample
center. The impact testing machine has the pneumatic
rebound brake device to prevent the repeated impact on
specimen. The impact energy was adjusted to be 26.8 J
by changing the height of the impactor. The transient
impact responses of the specimen include load and
energy data as a function of time. Peak load, time to
peak load, and absorbed energy can also be recorded.
The greatest vertical distance from the dent bottom
induced by the impact to specimen surface is measured
by three-coordinate measuring device as shown in
Figure 3(b) and the internal damage detection is

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Table 4. The structure parameters of seven samples.

Specimen

Hybrid structure

SI-C
SI-K
IE-C
IE-K
SA-C
SA-K
IA-CK

Single-carbon
Single-aramid
Inter-hybrid
Sandwich-like Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

Nominal
thickness (mm)

Density (g/cm3)

Fiber volume
fraction (%)

Aramid fiber
ratio (%)

4.00
4.00
4.01
4.02
4.00
4.05
4.00

1.45
1.34
1.38
1.38
1.48
1.39
1.34

49.80
50.20
53.25
50.13
51.56
50.13
50.00

0
100
50
60
40
55
50

Figure 2. The rectangular composite laminates.

conducted by using BSN-C3409 ultrasonic C-scan testing system as shown in Figure 3(c).

Results and discussion

Loadtime (Lt) curves
Typical loadtime curves for all seven kinds of laminates at the same energy level are shown in Figure 4.
Individually, each curve has a sudden load drop
(point A) at the beginning of the strike. The point A
is named as Hertzian failure, which indicates an abrupt
transition of specimen from an intact state to a
damaged state.2427 Also, it is the incipient damage
mainly in the form of interlaminar delamination.
However, as the impact continues, there are more
load oscillations in the ascending section of loadtime
curves (point A to point B), which is regarded as elastic
strain stage. The load oscillations may be caused by the
rupture of carbons, which result in small cracks not
connected in the samples. Then the curves enter the
second stage after point B, where there are some

uctuations and abrupt sharp drops. The trend could

be attributed to the critical structure damage. Finally,
there is a load redistribution of the surviving composite
laminates until the impact load is removed.
Samples with carbon fabric on the impact surface
(SI-C, IE-C, and SA-C) exhibit higher slope than
those found in samples with aramid fabric on the
impact surface (SI-K, IE-K, and SA-K), respectively.
This phenomenon can be explained that the early stage
of the impact response is controlled primarily by the
property of the impact surface layer. Carbon ber has
a higher modulus than the aramid ber, giving samples
with carbon fabric on the impact surface higher initial
slope values than samples with aramid fabric on the
impact surface from the impact load versus time curves.
Especially, there are sharp drops after point B in the
loadtime curves of IE-C and SA-C specimens. This
may be attributed to the brittle failure of carbon ber
of the impact surface layer. Unlike IE-C and SA-C,
IE-K and SA-K specimens show much smoother
curves with little fall of load after point B. On the contrary, the loadtime curve of IA-CK smooth rose until
reaching the peak load. The loadtime curves indicate
that hybrid composites specimens perform better than
non-hybrid carbon/epoxy composite (SI-C). Hence, it is
demonstrated that carbonaramid hybridization could
improve the impact properties of carbon/epoxy
composites.
For better interpretation of the experimental results,
the time to peak load is also a key important parameter.
Richardson and Wisheart28 indicated that the time to
peak load mainly depended on the stiness of laminates. It can be seen from Figure 4 that laminates with
interply hybrid structure take less time to reach peak
load. The main cause for that may lie in the higher
stiness provided by interply hybrid structure. And
the time to peak load of laminates with carbon fabric
surface is smaller than those found in the laminates
with aramid fabric surface, respectively. This suggests
that the stiness is controlled primarily by the layer
facing the impactor under the same hybrid structure.

Ying et al.

Figure 3. (a) Drop-weight impact test setup. (b) Three-coordinate measuring device. (c) C-scan equipment.

Figure 4. The typical impact loadtime curves of seven

samples.

The trend of the time to peak load is consistent with

those of peak load.
The average peak loads of all seven kinds of laminates are shown in Figure 5. It can be noticed that nonhybrid carbon ber composite has the maximum peak
load. On the contrary, non-hybrid aramid ber composite has the minimum peak load. The reason is that
both the modulus and the bending stiness of carbon
ber are much larger than those of aramid ber. It
could be explained that hybrid structure has great inuence on the impact peak load of composite. Especially,
the response is dominated by the property of the impact
surface layer. In the other words, the bending stiness
is inuenced by the layup. In the case that the impact
surface layer is made of carbon ber with larger rigidity, the laminates could eectively resist drop hammer
impact and improve peak load due to the brittle

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

30
Zone I

Zone III

Zone II

25

energy (J)

20

15

SI-K
SI-C
IE-C

10

IE-K
SA-C
SA-K

IA-KC

0
0

Figure 5. The average peak loads of seven groups of laminates.

fracture of carbon ber. On the contrary, in the case

that the impact surface layer is made of aramid ber
with lower bending and higher elongation, there would
be some drawn ber and tensile failure at the impact
point.
The peak load of IE-C is the maximum in interply
hybrid composites. The high modulus ber (carbon)
provides the stiness and load-bearing capacity,
whereas the ductile ber (aramid) provides better
damage tolerance and the ability of absorbing energy
by stretching and pulling out ber. But the peak load of
SA-C is lower than that of SA-K, and it could be attributed to the sudden collapse of the core or leading
delamination in the sample SA-C. The similar result
is also observed in Belingardi and Vadori.29 The intraply hybrid laminates (IA-KC) exhibit lower peak load,
suggesting that intraply hybrid may not be applied to
improve the impact properties eectively.

Energytime (Et) curves

As to the impact energytime curves in Figure 6, they
indicate that the impact absorbed energy by the samples in test and also can be characterized with three
distinct zones. At the rst stage (Zone I), the values
of absorbed energy are relatively low. It could be attributed to the small dent and deformation along the thickness direction under the transverse impact load. At
second stage (Zone II), the energytime curves increase
quickly, representing an augment in deection, even
internal damage. Thus, in this stage, the absorbed
energy is mainly due to the increase of contact area
between the impactor and the specimen. At the last
stage (Zone III), the absorbed energy maintains a constant value. The Zone III represents the specimen
response to the end of the rebound phase of the impactor, and subsequently the absorbed energy will not
increase. The similar conclusion on the absorbed

6
time (ms)

10

12

Figure 6. The typical impact energytime curves of seven

samples.

Table 5. Summary of average ductility index for seven groups of

laminates.
Specimen

Hybrid structure

EP/J

Ei/J

DI

SI-C
SI-K
IE-C
IE-K
SA-C
SA-K
IA-CK

Single-carbon
Single-aramid
Inter-hybrid

7.62
9.59
10.29
11.73
9.99
10.42
11.62

20.38
18.47
17.74
16.27
18.07
17.61
16.58

0.37
0.52
0.58
0.72
0.55
0.59
0.70

Sandwich-like
Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

energy versus time curves for laminates is also presented in Jang.30

Two of the most used parameters assessing damage
process in composites are the damage initiation energy
(Ei) and damage propagation energy (Ep). Damage initiation energy (Ei) is dened as the energy at the maximum load point, whereas damage propagation energy
(Ep) is the the energy absorbed in the crack propagation
phase. With Et representing the total energy absorbed
by the specimen in impact process, the damage propagation energy is then calculated from Ep Et  Ei.
Further considerations on the impact behavior of
the prepared composite systems can be obtained from
the comparison of the DI, dened as the ratio between
the damage propagation energy (Ep) and the damage
initiation energy (Ei). The DI is a dimensionless parameter that reveals the utilization of total impact energy
toward initiation and propagation energy in the
specimens.
The calculated damage initiation energy (Ei), propagation energy (Ep), and DI are given in Table 5.
According to Table 5, most of the impact energy was
absorbed at the initial damage stage. The incorporation

Ying et al.

Figure 7. The typical impact damage morphology photos of samples with carbon fabric on the impact surface and intraply hybrid
fabric on the impact surface. The arrow a stands for the long axis length and the arrow b stands for the short axis length.

of aramid into carbon ber reinforced polymer (CFRP)

composites decreases the damage initiation energy that
results in higher propagation energy in the laminates.
As a result, the DI increases. The maximum DI is
obtained from interply hybrid laminate with aramid
fabric on the impact surface. The interval arrangement
of aramid ber single-layer fabric and carbon ber
single-layer fabric led to a good stress transmission
that resulted in higher damage propagation energy.
On the other hand, the adjacent aramid ber can also
play a role in bridging the broken carbon ber, which
could improve the toughness of hybrid composites.
It can be seen from Table 5 that the DI of hybrid
specimens with aramid fabric on the impact surface
(IE-K and SA-K) is higher than that of hybrid specimens with carbon fabric on the impact surface (IE-C
and SA-C). Also, the DI of interply hybrid specimens is
higher than that of sandwich-like inter-hybrid specimens. The DI of intraply hybrid specimen is between
the interply hybrid specimen and sandwich-like interhybrid specimen. It means that the hybrid structure of

carbonaramid ber hybrid composite has great inuence on the impact toughness.

Damage evaluation of samples

The non-penetrated impact failure mechanism depends
on dierent modes of damage which include: (1) matrix
cracking, (2) debonding or delamination between the
plies, and (3) ber breakage and buckling. The three
damage modes contribute to dissipating energy.
The matrix cracks initiated at the contact edges of the
impactor are induced by the peak contact forces. The
crack on the non-impacted face is termed bending crack
because it is induced by tensile stress and is characteristically perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of laminate. Delamination develops in the presence of a matrix
crack due to the bending stiness mismatch between
adjacent layers induced by the dierent ber plies in
hybrid laminates. Both ber breakage and buckling
occur later than matrix cracking and delamination in
the fracture process. Fiber failure occurs just below the

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Figure 8. The typical 3D super-depth photos of laminates with carbon fabric on the impact surface and intraply hybrid fabric on the
impact surface.

impactor because of locally high stresses and indentation eects, and on the non-impacted face due to high
bending stress. Each of damage modes is inuenced by
the staking sequences and ber properties. The interaction between damage modes inuences failure initiation and propagation. The damage modes of
specimens were evaluated for front surface (impacted
face) and back surface (non-impacted face) by visual
inspection.

For the specimens with carbon fabric on the impact

surface, it is seen clearly from Figure 7 that there are
deep indentations and pronounced domes on the back
surfaces with considerable degree of deformations followed by ber breakages and pullout. Also, it can be
seen from back surfaces that there are some splits both
along the ll and warp directions. Sizes of cracks along
the two directions are close to the diameter of the
impactor. The surface dents in front surface are

Ying et al.

circular. The 3D super-depth photos of laminates with

carbon fabric on the impact surface and intraply hybrid
fabric on the impact surface are given in Figure 8. It can
be seen that there are serious carbon ber shear damages. This could be related to the weaker shear resistance of carbon ber and the lower tensile fracture
strain. Also, laminates with carbon fabric on the
impact surface show a pattern that is characterized by
cross-shaped and one-shaped cracks. Table 6 illustrates
the crack lengths of dierent hybrid composites with
carbon fabric on the impact surface. The cracks
length in sample length direction (long axis length)
and the cracks length in sample width direction (short
axis length) were measured by Vernier caliper. The
letter a stands for the long axis length and letter

Table 6. The typical crack length of samples with carbon fabric

on the impact surface.
Specimen
SI-C
IE-C
SA-C
IA-KC

Hybrid
structure

Long axis
length a/mm

Short axis
length b/mm

Single-carbon
Inter-hybrid
Sandwich-like
Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

32.12
83.24
70.24

22.31
38.26
19.87

31.58

19.36

b stands for the short axis length. It can be seen from

Table 6 that the long axis length are all larger than the
short axis length, for the reason that the stress propagation velocity along the ber direction is larger than
that of vertical ber. In particular, all congurations
can be ranked from the higher to the lower long axis
length in the following order: IE-C > SA-C > SIC > IA-KC. The main cause for this may lie in the
lay-up sequences. When stress waves propagate to the
dierent kinds of fabric layers which are arranged in
intercalated sequence, due to the various bending stiness, are easy to cause delaminations, which accelerate
the propagation of cracks. In addition to the ber fracture energy absorption, there are crack propagation
energy absorption and stratication energy absorption.
Hence, it also can be proven that the presence of interply hybrid could result in increased energy absorption
of hybrid laminated composite.
For the specimens with aramid fabric on the impact
surface, Figure 9 exhibits a pattern that is characterized
by circular pit damage, compaction, crack damage on
the front surface, and circular or one-shaped damage
area on the back surface with considerable degree of
deformation followed by ber breakages, pullout, and
brillation. And damage areas are lager than the crosssectional area of impactor. However, the samples are
not penetrated and the obvious crack damage is not
appeared in the back surface. The 3D super-depth

Figure 9. The typical impact damage morphology photos of laminates with aramid fabric on the impact surface.

10

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Figure 10. The typical 3D super-depth photos of samples with aramid fabric on the impact surface.

Table 7. The typical crack length of samples with aramid fabric

on the impact surface.
Specimen

Hybrid structure

SI-K
IE-K
SA-K

Single-aramid
Inter-hybrid
Sandwich-like
Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

IA-CK

Long axis
length a0 /mm

Short axis
length b0 /mm

0
58.22
22.04

0
22.36
18.54

31.58

19.36

photos of laminates with aramid fabric on the impact

surface are given in Figure 10. The damage type is
severely inuenced by dierent hybrid structures.
Aramid laminates (see Figure 10) only show obvious
plastic deformation that is featured by concave
damage, no cracking, and ber breakage injury.

Interply hybrid laminates (IE-K) exhibits cross-shaped

cracks on the front surface with associated severe ber
breakages (see Figure 9) and some back surface splitting on the edge of pit (see Figure 10). Sandwich-like
inter-hybrid laminates (SA-K) shows a pattern that is
characterized by macro cracks on the front face and a
one-shaped damage area on the back face with slight
ber breakages and brillations (see Figures 9 and 10).
Table 7 shows the crack lengths of dierent hybrid
composites with aramid fabric on the impact surface. In
a similar way, letter a0 stands for long axis length and
letter b0 stands for short axis length. It can be seen from
Table 7 that crack lengths in laminates with aramid
fabric on the impact surface are shorter than those in
laminates with carbon fabric on the impact surface.
And there are no cracks in laminates with aramid
fabric on the impact surface. This could be related to
the better ductile of aramid ber and the higher tensile
fracture strain. The crack length of the IE-K is larger
than that of the SA-K, which indicates that the interply

Ying et al.

11

Figure 11. The C-scan results after impact of typical composite laminates with carbon fabric on the impact surface.

Table 8. The average internal damage areas of seven groups of

samples.
Specimen

Hybrid structure

SI-C
SI-K
IE-C
IE-K
SA-C
SA-K
IA-CK

Single-carbon
Single-aramid
Inter-hybrid
Sandwich-like
Inter-hybrid
Intra-hybrid

Damage
area/mm2

Dent
depth/mm

457.43
799.12
831.10
1538.09
1321.08
1686.97
1821.45

1.263
0.918
0.949
1.221
0.891
0.635
1.68

hybrid composites are prone to cracking under same

impact energy.

Impact damage area

The internal damage areas of the impacted laminates
are obtained using the BSN-C3409 ultrasonic C-scan
testing system. As shown in Figure 11, it can be clearly
seen that damage morphology and area under the same
impact energy dier greatly for dierent hybrid structure composites.
The average impact damage areas and dent depths of
seven groups of laminates are given in Table 8. It can be
concluded that the average damage areas of laminates
with carbon fabric on the impact surface are smaller
than those with aramid fabric on the impact surface
under the same hybrid structure (damage area: SIC < SI-K, IE-C < IE-K, SA-C < SA-K). This hierarchy
is expected due to the following reasons. Laminate with

carbon fabric on the impact surface has higher exural

modulus because high stiness carbon reinforcements
are on the laminate surface and low stiness aramid
reinforcements are inside the laminate. Additionally,
carbon can withstand higher stresses. Hence, it is benecial to place carbon fabric layers at highly stressed
regions. The similar conclusion of damage area for
laminates is also observed in previous research
papers.31,32 In the ve dierent types of hybrid laminates, interply hybrid laminates (IE-C) have the smallest
damage area, implying that the interply hybrid structure is superior to others. The dent depth of intraply
hybrid laminate (IA-CK) is the largest, for the decline
of in-plane stiness. Laminates with carbon fabric on
the impact surface have relatively large dent depth, and
this is because the higher modulus of carbon ber leads
to serious shear damage. So the laminates with carbon
fabric on the impact surface have larger dent depth and
smaller damage area.

Conclusions
In this study, the eect of hybrid structure on the
low-velocity impact response of hybrid laminates was
investigated experimentally. From the impact tests,
ultrasonic C-scan, and micrographic inspection, the following conclusions are reached:
1. Among the seven groups of laminates tested, the
non-hybrid carbon/epoxy laminates (SI-C) have the
highest impact peak load, while the non-hybrid
aramid/epoxy laminates (SI-K) have the lowest.
Among the ve types of carbon-aramid/epoxy
hybrid laminates, the interply hybrid laminates

12
with carbon fabric on the impact surface (IE-C) perform better than others. The impact peak load of
IE-C hybrid composite is approximately 21%
higher than that of SI-K composite and approximately 7% smaller than that of SI-C composite.
2. The DI values of carbonaramid/epoxy hybrid
laminates were higher compared with non-hybrid
ber composites, implying that, for hybrid composites, more energy will be dissipated to reach the maximum load than afterward. The interply hybrid
composite with aramid fabric on the impact surface
(IE-K) has the highest DI value, which shows the
best impact fracture toughness.
3. The average damage areas of laminates with carbon
fabric on the impact surface are smaller than those
of laminates with aramid fabric on the impact surface under the same hybrid structure (damage area:
SI-C < SI-K, IE-C < IE-K, SA-C < SA-K). And,
interply hybrid structure is superior to other
hybr structures (damage area: IE-C < SA-C, IEK < SA-K).
As for the future studies, optimizing and developing
hybrid laminates with dierent fabric structures are
promising to be exploited for novel lightweight materials for automobile.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following nancial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 11102133)
and the Science and Technology Research Project of
Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant Number 211007).

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