Effect of woven yarn angle on the low‐velocity impact damage response of fibre woven thermoplastic composites

Abstract Fibre woven thermoplastic composites (FWTC) are widely used in aerospace and other fields because of their excellent performance. During service, FWTC structures are inevitably subjected to low‐velocity impact (LVI), which can cause invisible damage and eventual failure of the material. At the moment, studies on FWTC mostly focused on the orthogonal woven yarns while there's few reports about the effect of the yarn angle changing on the woven material's LVI damage response. This study aims at the effect of yarn angle changing on the damage behaviour of FWTC. A method for preparation of nonorthogonal prepregs was proposed, by which FWTC laminates with different yarn angles (60°, 75°, and 90°) were prepared for LVI tests. The results show that the maximum impact displacement and the impact duration of the impactor decrease with the decrease of the yarn angle when the FWTC laminate is subjected to LVI, while the maximum impact force shows an increasing trend. This indicates that the smaller yarn angle causes the better load‐bearing capacity of the FWTC laminate under LVI conditions, while the orthogonal FWTC laminate is more ductile. The damage morphology indicated by the impact of the FWTC laminate are matrix cracks and yarn breaks, and the damage area increases with the decrease of yarn angle, where the damage of orthogonal laminate is more serious more concentrated. The results found in this paper can provide useful guidance for engineering applications and failure analysis of FWTC.