Numerical investigation on polyurea coated aluminum plate subjected to low velocity impact

•A new three-dimensional combined with hyperelastic, viscoelastic and elastoplastic mechanics is established for the analysis of impact response and fracture in polyurea coated aluminum plates with different coating methods.•The Ogden model and the generalized Maxwell model are established and fitted, which are suitable for characterizing the hyperelastic and viscoelastic response for polyurea under low and medium strain rates.•This study reveals the influence law of polyurea stiffness, aluminum strength, bonding strength, and polyurea thickness on impact resistance of polyurea coated aluminum plates. A novel three-dimensional model was established for analyzing the impact response and fracture of polyurea-coated aluminum plates using the LS-DYNA finite element code. Hyperelastic and viscoelastic constitutive models were established to characterize the impact response of polyurea, and a modified Johnson-Cook model was used to characterize the impact response of aluminum. The constitutive models of polyurea and aluminum were characterized and validated by comparing their results with those of tensile experiments under different strain rates. The simulation results of polyurea-coated aluminum plates were analyzed using the impact responses for different coating methods. Moreover, the effects of the polyurea stiffness, aluminum strength, bonding strength, and polyurea thickness on the impact resistance of polyurea-coated aluminum plates are discussed in detail. The impact peak force, energy absorption, and deformation results of the simulation of polyurea-coated aluminum plates for different coating methods were within 5% of the experimental results. Accordingly, the established model can accurately predict the fracture modes, thus demonstrating that the proposed methodology is more suitable for polyurea-coated aluminum plates under low-velocity impact than the existing methods.