High-Velocity Impact Damage Assessment of Aluminum-Honeycomb-Cored Banana-Fiber-Reinforced Composite Structures Under Elevated Temperatures

The impact damage of honeycomb sandwich structures with banana-fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) composite faceplates under high-velocity impacts at elevated temperatures is evaluated in present experimental study. BFRP composites were manufactured using vacuum-assisted resin transfer method. The high-velocity impact test was conducted using single-stage gas gun which shows sandwich structures with BFRP faceplates have higher energy absorption than the BFRP plates alone. It was observed that the BFRP composite plate perforates at 65.22 m/s, whereas the top faceplate of the BFRP sandwich structure perforates at 120 m/s. The gas gun with thermal setup was employed to investigate the high-velocity impact at higher temperatures. The matrix of the composite plays a crucial role when impacting at high temperature. When compared to the impact at 70 °C and 150 °C, the composite shows high-energy absorption at 110 °C. The results obtained in the present study throws light on the crashworthiness aspects of BFRP composites and sandwich structures with BFRP faceplates at room and elevated temperature under high-velocity impact loads.