Paper number 193

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF IMPACT ON MARINE COMPOSITES

D. Choqueuse, R. Baizeau, P. Davies

Marine Materials Laboratory,
IFREMER, Centre de Brest,
BP70, 29280 Plouzané,
France.

Summary

This paper presents a of recent experimental work at IFREMER on impact of structures for marine applications. The aim of this work is primarily to develop test data which will enable predictive methods to be validated, so that in the future the number of expensive tests can be minimized. A second aim is to compare the performance of different materials under impact loading. Three types of impact are discussed. First, falling weight, involving energies up to 3 kJ, and steel impacters weighing up to 50 kg which are dropped onto composite sandwich panels. The second type of test is the simulation of wave impact (slamming) using a 20 kg flexible bladder impacter. The third type is large mass impact and tests involving the release of containers weighing up to 4 tons from heights up to 3 metres onto large steel and composite floor structures are presented. In addition to producing the data necessary for checking models, the results from these studies show that composites possess attractive energy-absorbing mechanisms.

Keywords

impact, sandwich, falling weight, slamming, offshore.