Study on the Impact Response and Energy Absorption Characteristics of Three-Dimensional Multicellular Woven Composites

The 3-D (three-dimensional)cellular woven fabrics composites were manufactured based on the 3-D angle-interlock woven fabric. The impact responses and energy absorption of the composite were tested in a modified split Hopkinson bar (SHPB) apparatus. A unit-cell model of the composite was established from the microstructure features, the fiber volume fraction and mechanical behaviors of the model were same as the test sample, A user subroutine VUMAT (FORTRAN Vectorized User-Material) was developed and connected with a commercial available FEM software package ABAQUS/Explicit for calculating the impact responses of the composite. This subroutine described the elastic-plastic constitutive equations of the unit-cell, maximum stress failure criteria and critical damage area failure criteria. It was found that there was a good agreement of the impact load-displacement, failure modes between Finite Element Modelling (FEM) calculation and experimental. This proves the validity of the unit-cell model, failure criteria and user-defined subroutine VUMAT. The VUMAT can also be extended to characterize the impact responses of other engineering structures manufactured from the 3-D cellular woven composites.