Intralaminar hybrid configurations on the impact resistance of Carbon/Kevlar plain-woven composite plates

Intralaminar hybridization with Kevlar is an effective approach to enhance the impact resistance of carbon fiber-reinforced composite plates. This study investigates the influence of different intralaminar hybrid configurations on the impact resistance of plain-woven composite plates. Carbon/Kevlar hybrid composite plates with various configurations were fabricated and subjected to high-velocity impact tests, accompanied by numerical simulations based on a multi-scale modeling framework considering elastoplasticity of Kevlar tension-compression asymmetry. The results reveal that integrating Kevlar fibers into carbon fiber plain-woven composite plates significantly improves impact resistance by shifting the dominant failure mode from brittle fracture of carbon fibers to the fiber pull-out of Kevlar bundles. Additionally, reducing the number of carbon/Kevlar interwoven regions further enhances the impact resistance of hybrid composite plates with the same Kevlar content.