Finite element modelling of low velocity impact test applied to biaxial glass fiber reinforced laminate composites

•High-speed imaging and DIC are used to track damage progression during impact test•A proposed 3D FE model allows predicting the impact behavior of laminate composites•[0/90]3s laminates failed due to fiber breakage at high compression impacted region•[±45]3s laminates exhibited matrix cracking and delamination caused by high tension The aim of this paper is to describe the dynamic behavior of biaxial glass fiber reinforced laminate composites under low velocity impact test through finite element modelling. Experimental investigations by impact test performed using an instrumented drop weight testing machine were conducted on three-point bending composite samples in order to assess their impact damage resistance. Moreover, the experimental setup allowed the visualization of real-time damage progression of the impacted laminate composite via high-speed camera Phantom V2512 enabling to capture 83000 frames per second. Dynamic strain fields were extracted by Digital Image Correlation (DIC) method. Based on the experimental results, a numerical study of the impacted specimens was developed as a user subroutine VUMAT integrated to ABAQUS/Explicit in order to precisely capture the progressive dynamic failure of the laminate composite under impact test. In the proposed model, the damage and failure of each ply are accounted by a Hashin 3D damage-based behavior, and a cohesive zone model is employed to capture the onset and progression of inter-laminar delamination. A good experimental-numerical correlation was obtained for peak force and failure modes.