Impact Damage Behavior of Glass/Epoxy Laminates for Railway Vehicle at Low Temperature

This paper deals with the damage behavior of glass/epoxy composite laminates subjected to low-velocity impact at various temperatures. For this goal, the impact tests were performed by using an instrumented impact-testing machine at three temperatures: +20°C, -10°C and -40°C. And the resultant damages were inspected through the scanning acoustic microscope (SAM). Also, based on the impact force history and the damage configuration of the laminates, the impact resistance parameters were employed to evaluate damage resistance of glass/epoxy laminates. As results, it was found that the temperature changes affect the damage resistance capacity of glass/epoxy laminates.