Experimental and numerical investigations of damage and ballistic limit velocity of CFRP laminates subject to harpoon impact

•Through experimental comparison, the feasibility of conducting numerical simulation analysis using the 3D Hashin failure criterion and cohesive element was confirmed.•Based on the experiment, a finite element simulation model was established to describe the damage pattern and ballistic limit velocity of CFRP laminates under low-velocity oblique impact.•The energy absorption law of CFRP laminates under low-velocity impact at different angles was obtained. The harpoon is a space debris capture mechanism with strong adaptability to targets. In this paper, experiments and finite element models are used to study the harpoon impact on carbon fiber laminate. Firstly, a harpoon penetration gas gun experiment was designed to obtain the damage and ballistic limit velocity of carbon fiber laminates. Then finite element modeling and numerical simulation of the impact on the laminate were carried out using the user–defined VUMAT subroutine in ABAQUS, focusing on the ballistic limit velocity change, damage evolution of the laminate and energy absorption of the laminate when the harpoon penetrates the laminate obliquely at a specific angle. The results showed that compared with vertical penetration, the ballistic limit velocity of harpoon increased by 3.2 %, 9.6 % and 24.3 % respectively under 15°, 30° and 45° oblique penetration conditions; and with the increase of harpoon impact angle, the damage of laminates gradually tended to occur on one side of the projection of harpoon on laminates; while in terms of energy absorption, the energy absorption of laminates for the same angle tended to a constant value as the launch velocity increased.