Impact damage of composite laminates with high-speed waterjet

Rain erosion may cause substantial damage to aircrafts during supersonic flight. Such event is investigated here via high-speed waterjet impact on composite laminates. An experimental setup is developed to produce waterjets with the speed up to 700m/s and a finite element model of the waterjet-composite impact event is established. The consistency of experiment and simulation results validates the adopted numerical methods. The distribution of the water-hammer pressure is non-uniform and the maximum pressure occurs near the contact periphery when the water is about to eject laterally. After a high-speed (300∼560m/s) waterjet impacts a composite laminate, the impacted surface depression is observed, and the typical surface damage presents a central region with no visible surface damage surrounded by a faded “failure ring” with resin removal, matrix cracking and minor fiber fracture. Delamination occurs at the interfaces of adjacent layers with unequal dimensions and longitudinal matrix cracking appears on the back surface. Both the velocity and the diameter of waterjets are crucial factors on CFRP damage extents. Water-hammer pressure, the stagnation pressure and propagation of stress waves are failure mechanisms for most matrix damage in CFRP impacted by waterjets.