Browsing by Author "Davies, P."
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Item Open Access Improved impact performance of marine sandwich panels using through-thickness reinforcement: Experimental results(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2010-03-01T00:00:00Z) Baral, N.; Cartié, Denis D. R.; Partridge, Ivana K.; Baley, C.; Davies, P.This paper presents results from a test developed to simulate the water impact (slamming) loading of sandwich boat structures. A weighted elastomer ball is dropped from increasing heights onto rigidly supported panels until damage is detected. Results from this test indicate that honeycomb core sandwich panels, the most widely used material for racing yacht hulls, start to damage due to core crushing at impact energies around 550 J. Sandwich panels of the same areal weight and with the same carbon/epoxy facings but using a novel foam core reinforced in the thickness direction with pultruded carbon fibre pins, do not show signs of damage until above 1200 J impact energy. This suggests that these will offer significantly improved resistance to wave impact. Quasi-static test results cannot be used to predict impact resistance here as the crush strength of the pinned foam is more sensitive to loading rate than that of the honeycomb core.Item Open Access The influence of hydrostatic pressure on the interlaminar fracture toughness of carbon/epoxy composites(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2006-06-01T00:00:00Z) Cartié, Denis D. R.; Davies, P.; Peleau, M.; Partridge, Ivana K.The use of composites for deep sea applications requires a thorough understanding of the behaviour of these materials. While several studies have examined the influence of pressure on in-plane properties few data are available for the interlaminar fracture behaviour. This paper presents results from such tests performed in a specially designed pressure vessel mounted on a standard test machine, which allows pressures up to 1000 bars (100 MPa) to be applied during mechanical testing. Mode I and Mode II tests have been performed on a unidirectional IM7/977-2 carbon/epoxy composite. No effect of pressure was noted on Mode I fracture toughness. A data reduction scheme has been developed for Mode II loading and an increase in GIIC with increasing pressure was noted.