Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295

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Composites: Part A
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compositesa

Penetration impact testing of self-reinforced composites

Y. Meerten ⇑, Y. Swolfs, J. Baets, L. Gorbatikh, I. Verpoest
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 44 bus 2450, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Penetration impact resistance is one of the key advantages of self-reinforced composites. This is typically
Received 9 July 2014 measured using the same setup as for brittle fibre composites. However, issues with the test configura-
Received in revised form 7 October 2014 tion for falling weight impact tests are reported. Similar issues have been found in literature for other
Accepted 12 October 2014
composites incorporating ductile fibres. If the dimensions of the test samples are too small relative to
Available online 18 October 2014
the clamping device, then the test samples can heavily deform by wrinkling and necking. These
unwanted mechanisms should be avoided as they absorb additional energy compared to properly tested
Keywords:
samples. Furthermore, these mechanisms are found to occur more easily at lower compaction tempera-
A. Polymer (textile) fibre
B. Impact behaviour
tures due to the lower interlayer bonding. In conclusions, the sample dimensions of ductile fibre compos-
D. Mechanical testing ites should be carefully selected for penetration impact testing. If wrinkling or necking is observed, then
Self-reinforced composites the sample dimensions need to be increased.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In the bicomponent tape technology, the polymeric tapes are

coated with a copolymer, with a lower melting temperature. Upon
The number of applications for synthetic polymers continues to compaction, only the copolymer is melted and subsequently forms
grow, because of their low density and generally low cost. They the matrix cooling. Film stacking consists of adding polymer films
have replaced natural materials and metals in numerous applica- in between layers of oriented polymer tapes or fibres. The films
tions. Their use is currently limited to non-structural applications have a lower melting temperature than the oriented tape or fibre.
due to their relatively low strength and stiffness. By adding a rein- The consolidation temperature is chosen between the melting
forcing fibre, these disadvantages can be mitigated. Glass, carbon temperature of the film and the oriented tape or fibre.
and aramid fibres have been established as polymer reinforce- Extensive reviews of the production and mechanical properties
ments for several decades. However, these high performance fibres of self-reinforced composites from different polymers can be found
lead to composite failure strains ranging from 1% to 3%. in [11,12]. The mechanical properties of self-reinforced polypro-
The mechanical properties of polymers can also be increased by pylene (SRPP) depend on process parameters such as temperature,
inducing molecular orientation [1]. Polymers can for example be pressure and dwell time, and on material specific parameters such
drawn into fibres or tapes [2–4]. These fibres and tapes can then as weave architecture and tape draw ratio [13,14]. The process
be used to make self-reinforced composites (SRCs), where fibre temperature has a strong influence on the tensile properties of
and matrix are made of the same polymer. This type of composite hot compacted SRPP: in a 12 °C temperature window, the strength
with only one constituent was first investigated by Capiati and Por- increases from 55 MPa to 140 MPa and then falls back to 27 MPa
ter [5]. Different production processes for self-reinforced compos- [13]. Furthermore, higher temperatures increase the interlayer
ites were developed, such as hot compaction [6,7], film stacking [8] bonding [13,15–17], which is typically quantified by the peel
and bicomponent tape technology [9,10]. In the hot compaction strength.
technology, pressure and heat are applied to stacks of polymeric In addition to low density and recyclability, SRCs are attractive
tapes. By selecting the optimal processing conditions, only the materials because of their excellent impact resistance. For charac-
outer skin of the tapes melts, which forms the matrix upon cooling. terization of the impact resistance, instrumented falling weight
impact (IFWI) tests are common practice. IFWI tests are commonly
used in literature to characterize the impact properties of SRPP
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +32 16 37 35 12.
[9,18–23], but are actually only standardized for rigid plastics
E-mail addresses: yannick.meerten@mtm.kuleuven.be (Y. Meerten), yentl.
and brittle textile composites in ASTM 5628-96 [24] and ISO
swolfs@mtm.kuleuven.be (Y. Swolfs), joris.baets@mtm.kuleuven.be (J. Baets),
larissa.gorbatikh@mtm.kuleuven.be (L. Gorbatikh), ignaas.verpoest@mtm. 6603-2 [25]. SRPP is more ductile and impact resistant than con-
kuleuven.be (I. Verpoest). ventional glass or carbon fibre composites [6], and hence it is ques-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2014.10.012
1359-835X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
290 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295

tionable whether SRPP can be properly tested using these 110 tex, a stiffness of 6.9 ± 1.2 GPa and a strength of 589 ± 24 MPa
standards. [20]. Isotropic PP films of the same PP grade and with a thickness of
Many authors published data for the penetration impact energy 20 lm were provided by Propex Fabrics GmbH.
of SRPP. It is common practice to report values normalized by the
thickness of the samples. However, Alcock et al. find a non-linear 2.2. Hot compaction
relation between the penetration impact energy and the thickness
[9], so this normalization will induce an error on the following val- To produce samples for impact testing, layers of woven PP-
ues. For hot compacted SRPP, penetration impact energies of 21 J/ tapes with dimensions of 320  320 mm2 were stacked between
mm [20], 52–75 J/mm [19], and 26 J/mm [14] are reported. Bicom- 1 mm thick aluminium plates. A Fontijne Grotnes LabPro400 hot
ponent tape SRPP has an impact resistance of 20–44 J/mm [9], and press was pre-heated for 10 min at the compaction temperature
finally for film stacked SRPP, values of 16–21 J/mm are reported to ensure a homogeneous temperature distribution. The stack
[23]. was then inserted into the press and kept at the compaction tem-
Swolfs et al. [14] and Aurrekoetxea et al. [21] find that hot com- perature and a pressure of 4 MPa for 5 min. During cooling to 40 °C
pacted SRPP primarily fails due to tape fracture, while delamina- in 5 min, the pressure was maintained to minimize shrinkage. To
tion also significantly contributes to the energy absorption for aid compaction, the woven PP tapes were interleaved with PP films
the bicomponent tape SRPP [9]. For bicomponent tape SRPP, del- for some layups. Unless otherwise mentioned, these films were not
aminations are more likely to occur according to Alcock et al. [9]. added.
It is stated in [9,21] that increasing the consolidation temperature Unless otherwise stated, the impact tests will be performed on
improves the interlayer bonding. A high interlayer bonding 16 layers of SRPP compacted at 188 °C, without PP films. These
impedes the development of delaminations and therefore leads samples have a thickness of 2.48 mm.
to more localized impact damage.
Alcock et al. [9], Crauwels [19] and Tissington et al. [26] show 2.3. Compaction quality
images of samples with severe deformation, such as those in
Fig. 1. The former two show images of SRPP samples, while the lat- Ultrasonic C-scans were performed to investigate the compac-
ter shows that polyethylene fibre/epoxy composites can suffer tion quality, compacted at different temperatures. An Olympus
from the same problem. Under normal circumstances, the main Panametrics V309SU transducer at 5 MHz and 100 V and 13 mm
energy absorption mechanisms for SRPP during IFWI tests are tape nominal diameter was used for the scans. The step size was
fracture, delamination and debonding of fibre and matrix [9,21,23]. 2 mm and the plates were scanned at 0.2 mm/s. The histograms
It is expected that heavily deformed samples will have a higher of the C-scans are processed with the signal processing algorithms
impact energy absorption, as the energy absorption mechanisms by O’Haver [27] to differentiate between areas with a different
should be limited to inside the clamped region. compaction quality.
The present work will investigate whether the standard IFWI
test as performed in literature are applicable for ductile fibre com- 2.4. Impact tests
posites. A number of assumptions made in literature need to be
verified. Firstly, the compaction quality of the SRPP needs to be Instrumented falling weight impact (IFWI) tests are performed
verified. Secondly, the linear relationship between penetration with different test setups, among which the ASTM D5628 and
impact energy and sample thickness will be investigated, as Alcock the ISO 6603-2 standards. A hemispherical striker with diameter
et al. [9] indicate that this relationship is not linear. Thirdly, the 20 mm is used in combination with clamps with inner diameters
influence of sample geometry and clamp size on the impact resis- of 40 and 80 mm and outer diameters of 60 and 100 mm, respec-
tance is investigated and parameters for the evaluation of configu- tively. The samples are clamped with a force of 2800 N, regardless
ration-dependent behaviour are proposed. Finally, when an of the size of the clamp. This corresponds to a clamping pressure of
adequate test setup is defined, the authors show the damage 1780 kPa and 557 kPa for respectively the 60 mm and the 100 mm
mechanisms change with the compaction temperature. clamp. A striker with a weight of 26.17 kg is dropped from 1 m
height, which is equivalent to an impact energy of 257 J. The pen-
2. Materials and methods etration impact energy is calculated as the area underneath the
force–displacement diagram until the force has dropped below half
2.1. Materials of its maximum value.
Unless otherwise stated, the square impact samples have a
Drawn polypropylene tapes are woven in a twill 2/2 pattern by length of 100 mm and the default clamp is the one with an outer
Propex Fabrics GmbH (Germany). The tapes have a linear density of diameter of 60 mm.

Fig. 1. Heavily deformed impact samples: (a) Alcock et al., bicomponent tape SRPP (reprinted from [9], with permission from Elsevier), (b) Crauwels, hot compacted SRPP
[19], and (c) Tissington et al., polyethylene–epoxy composite (reprinted from [26], with permission from Elsevier).
 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295 291

The compaction quality of every impact sample was verified The compaction quality is significantly higher at 188 °C. The
with C-scanning. At least 5 impact samples were tested for each absence of a tail in Fig. 2 implies that there are no large voids or
configuration. dry areas in the material. Nevertheless, the histogram still shows
a bimodal distribution, although both peaks have shifted to higher
greyscales (better compaction quality). The C-scan image (see
3. Results
Fig. 3b) indicates that the borders of the sample are whiter and
thus better compacted than at 184 °C (see Fig. 3a). This may have
3.1. Compaction quality assessment
been caused by a higher shrinkage at the sample edges, causing
more molecular relaxation and a local increase of the matrix frac-
Scanning acoustic microscopy C-scans yield information about
tion. This effect counteracts the lower temperature at the mould
the homogeneity and compaction quality of the sample. The com-
edge as observed for the 184 °C samples. The average greyscale is
paction quality is investigated on plates compacted at 184, 188 and
now 124 for the first peak and 142 for the second peak.
192 °C. These plates are square with a width of 320 mm and a
At 192 °C, a single, high peak is found, indicating homogeneous
thickness of 2.48 ± 0.03 mm. The compaction quality will be evalu-
compaction quality. The bimodality has disappeared. A larger frac-
ated by the histogram of reflected signal amplitude of the C-scan. A
tion of the tapes have melted at this temperature, as evidenced by
single, narrow peak at high greyscale value would indicate a homo-
the decrease in tensile strength and modulus [22].
geneous, high quality compaction.
From the investigation of the compaction quality, it is observed
Figs. 2 and 3 respectively show the C-scan histograms and
that the compaction quality at 184 °C is low and variable within
images of representative sample compacted at 184 °C, 188 °C and
one plate. At 188 °C, the compaction quality is higher, but still
192 °C. At 184 °C, the C-scan image shows that the compaction
not completely homogeneous. Only at 192 °C, a completely homo-
quality at the edges is considerably worse than in the middle of
geneous compaction is achieved. Impact samples will be cut from
the plate. The horizontal and vertical lines found in the C-scan
the samples in various locations. It is therefore expected that the
image correspond to the woven architecture. The dark grey areas
scatter on the impact properties is inversely proportional to the
correspond to the histogram at low greyscale values and indicate
compaction temperature.
poor compaction quality. The middle of the plate on the other
hand, shows a better compaction quality, corresponding to the
peak at a greyscale of 117. The bimodality is caused by the inevita- 3.2. Effect of specimen thickness
bly lower temperature at the edges of the hot press, even though
the press was stabilized at the compaction temperature for 10 min. For a fair comparison between samples with different thick-
nesses, the absolute penetration impact energy is often normalized
by the sample thickness. Normalization of the penetration impact
energy assumes that the penetration impact energy of SRPP
depends linearly on the sample thickness. Fig. 4 validates this
assumption, for SRPP compacted at 188 °C. A univariate regression
shows a linear relation between penetration impact energy Epen
and thickness t with Epen (J) = 26.8 (J/mm) ⁄ t(mm), with R2 = 79.7%.
It is also interesting to note that the penetration impact energy
of a single layer follows this linear trend. Since a single layer can-
not delaminate, most of the energy must be absorbed through tape
fracture and perhaps some tape-matrix debonding. Tape fracture is
hence the primary failure mechanism at 188 °C.
Fig. 5 shows the decrease of thickness of a compacted plate with
increasing compaction temperature for the same amount of layers.
The difference between 184 °C and 188 °C is 4.6% and between
188 °C and 192 °C is 7.5%. Adding a PP film with a thickness of
Fig. 2. C-scan histograms of SRPP compacted three temperatures; greyscale 0 and
20 lm between each layer of woven PP tapes gives a significant
255 in the histogram represent respectively black and white in the image.
(p = 2.46%) increase in thickness of 5.0%. The film fills the remain-

(a) 184 °C (b) 188 °C (c) 192 °C

320 mm

Fig. 3. C-scan images of SRPP compacted at three temperatures: (a) 184 °C, (b) 188 °C, and (c) 192 °C. Black and white represent respectively bad and good compaction
quality.
292 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295

ison between SRCs and conventional brittle fibre composites.

However, it appears that two failure mechanisms are induced by
the test setup, namely necking and wrinkling. Necking is defined
as the in-plane deformation of the edges towards the centre of
the sample. Wrinkling is defined as out-of-plane deformation of
sample. These damage mechanisms are observed when the sam-
ples have dimensions that are only slightly larger than the dimen-
sions of the clamp. Examples of necking can be seen in Fig. 1 and
examples of wrinkling can be seen in Figs. 6 and 9.
To verify whether the dimensions of the sample are sufficiently
large compared to the clamp, the geometry ratio G is defined. This
is computed as the edge length of the square sample divided by the
outer diameter of the clamp. It is a measure for the excess amount
of material that sticks outside of the clamp area. At a low geometry
ratio G, necking and wrinkling will occur, leading to increased pen-
Fig. 4. Linear relationship between penetration impact energy and the thickness of
SRPP compacted at 188 °C.
etration energy. This deviation from a constant normalized pene-
tration impact energy is shown in Fig. 7.
The impact resistance at higher G ratios tends towards a stable
value, where the excess amount of material is large enough to pre-
vent any degree of necking and wrinkling. This is proven by an
analysis on the variance (ANOVA) on the IFWI tests. Three sample
lengths (60, 100, 140) are tested with the 60 mm clamp, giving G
ratios of 1, 1.67 and 2.33. Similarly, four sample lengths
(100, 140, 167, 233) are tested with the 100 mm clamp, giving G
ratios of 1, 1.4, 1.67 and 2.33. Both the size of the clamp
(P < 0.1%) and the size of the specimens (P < 1%) affect the penetra-
tion impact energy significantly. P < 0.1% implies that the probabil-
ity that the size of the clamp does not influence the penetration
impact energy is smaller than 0.1%. The size of the clamp defines
the volume of the material available for damage development.
For the effect of the size of the specimens, the amount of material
outside of the clamp needs to be considered, as this is the material
that provides the resistance to necking and wrinkling. It is also
Fig. 5. Thickness of 16 layers SRPP compacted at different temperatures.
found that an interaction between the two variables is unlikely
(P = 10.7%).
ing porosities in the composite, thus increasing the compaction Fig. 7 also demonstrates the stabilization effect that larger
quality. This is proven by the fact that the thickness only increases geometry ratios have on the penetration impact energy. It is neces-
with 130 lm while the total added thickness of films is 300 lm.
In contrast with the linear trend in Fig. 4, Alcock et al. [9] found
a non-linear relationship between absolute impact resistance and
sample thickness of bicomponent tape SRPP. The linear behaviour
was only observed for thickness values between 2.0 and 4.0 mm. At
thicknesses below 2.0 mm, the impact resistance increased again.
This trend cannot continue as the impact resistance at 0 mm must
be 0 J. Alcock et al. suggested that the non-linearity for bicompo-
nent tape SRPP was caused by the increased deflection in thin sam- Wrinkling
ples. The images of the impacted samples (Fig. 1a) shown by Alcock
Fig. 6. Example of wrinkling observed in a slightly different SRPP composite.
et al. in [9] show that some samples cannot resist deformation out-
side of the clamping area. It is likely more prevalent in lower thick-
ness samples which are expected to have a lower geometrical
stiffness. The next section changes the test geometry to investigate
how deformation outside of the clamping area affects the penetra-
tion impact resistance.

3.3. Effect of test geometry

A robust testing technique in every scientific field should be

independent of the test setup, or the influence of the testing envi-
ronment should at least be understood. In literature, IFWI tests are
performed on self-reinforced composites according to ASTM D5628
[24] and ISO 6603-2 [25]. These standards were developed for rigid
plastics and brittle textile composites and are widely used for test-
ing polymer composites. Conventional glass and carbon fibres are
brittle, so their composites can be tested according to these stan- Fig. 7. Non-linear effect of the test geometry on the impact resistance of SRPP
dards. The same testing method should be used to allow a compar- compacted at 188 °C.
 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295 293

sary to test samples that are significantly larger than the clamp. grow under the clamp and lead to extensive wrinkling, as observed
The additional material outside the clamps increases the resistance in all 8 tested samples. The in-plane deformation (necking) is lim-
against unwanted deformation outside of the clamp, which is an ited because the sample is large enough to impede in-plane move-
artefact of the test geometry. At a certain geometry ratio, the resis- ment. This shows that samples compacted at 184 °C will have a
tance is sufficient to completely prevent these test geometry higher minimal geometry ratio than samples compacted at 188 °C.
dependent deformation mechanisms. This is the minimal geometry The effect of a weaker interface combined with a small geome-
ratio for adequate IFWI tests. For 16 layers of SRPP compacted at try ratio is also visible in Fig. 1a, where impacted samples of
188 °C, this ratio is around 1.67. These high geometry ratios also bicomponent tape SRPP show large necking. Note that the position
help to reduce the scatter in the measurements. of the clamp is clearly visible on the sample in Fig. 1a, showing that
It should be noted that the 60 mm samples tested with the the sample only just fitted in the clamp.
60 mm clamp (G = 1) can only be just clamped in, and of the 8 The authors believe that the effect of the test geometry is
tested samples, only one is penetrated (Fig. 8). The other 7 are caused by imperfect fixation of the samples in the clamp. The
pulled into the clamp during the impact event. This is not the case penetration impact resistance of the composite would be inde-
for the 100 mm samples tested with the 100 mm clamp, where 5 pendent of the amount of material outside the clamping ring if
out of 5 samples were penetrated. The authors believe that the lar- the clamping were perfect. A composite with low stiffness will
ger clamping diameter allows more material to deform and absorb have a tendency to wrinkle from the moment that any slip
energy, because the deflection span is larger than for the 60 mm (imperfect fixation) is present. From that moment, it is beneficial
clamp. to have surplus material outside of the clamps from the moment
Fig. 9 shows samples compacted at 184 °C and geometry ratio that any slip occurs.
1.4 (140 mm sample/100 mm clamp). 7 Out of 8 samples did not In conclusion, care should be taken when testing ductile fibre
penetrate due to heavy delaminations, caused by the weaker inter- composites. When necking or wrinkling is observed in such mate-
face compared to samples compacted at 188 °C. The delaminations rials, the sample dimensions should be increased. Alternatively, the

(a) Penetrated sample (b) Sample pulled into the clamp

60 mm

Fig. 8. Samples tested on the clamp with outer diameter 60 mm: (a) the only sample with penetration; (b) one of the eight samples that was pulled into the clamp. (For
interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

(a) Penetraon (b) No penetraon

140 mm
Fig. 9. Impacted samples compacted at 184 °C, with the 100 mm clamp: (a) the only sample out of 8 that was penetrated, and (b) unpenetrated sample. (For interpretation of
the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
294 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295

of matrix material increases. This leads to increased interlayer

bonding and composite failure strain but decreased tensile
strength and tape failure strain [22]. The increase in interlayer
bonding also impedes the development of delaminations. Hence,
the penetration impact energy will decrease with increasing com-
paction temperature. For this investigation, samples with a size of
100 mm are tested with a clamp of 60 mm outer diameter
(G = 1.67).
The addition of films is a common practice to broaden the pro-
cessing window of hot compaction [15]. The effect of the addition
of films is similar to the effect of increasing the consolidation tem-
perature. Adding one PP film between the woven PP layers, leads to
a decrease of impact resistance of 36% at 188 °C. The improved
adhesion hampers the development of delaminations. Further-
more, films increase the thickness of the composite plate by 5.2%
Fig. 10. The influence of the compaction temperature and interleaved films on the
while the additional matrix formed by the films only absorbs lim-
impact performance.
ited energy [20]. Hence, adding extra PP film between each woven
PP layer lowers the normalized penetration impact energy.
size of the clamp can be increased, but then the size of the samples Fig. 11 displays representative penetrated samples at 184 °C,
should be increased proportionally. 188 °C (with and without extra PP films) and 192 °C. It is clear that
the damage mechanisms leading to failure are different. The dam-
age mechanisms considered are delamination, tape-matrix deb-
3.4. Effect of compaction temperature onding and tape fracture. All these mechanisms show up as
opaque areas in the images. It should be noted though, that plastic
Necking and wrinkling are more likely to occur with lower deformation of both tapes and matrix will lead to stress whitening
interlayer bonding. In hot compacted SRPP, the interlayer bonding in SRPP. The samples compacted at 188 °C still have a strong bond-
strongly depends on the compaction temperature [13]. The influ- ing between the layers after fracture. The samples compacted at
ence of the processing temperature on the impact resistance of 184 °C however, are heavily delaminated, as observed by bending
hot compacted SRPP is illustrated in Fig. 10. The penetration the samples after impact. The area around the penetration that is
impact energy drops from 44 J/mm to 17 J/mm by increasing the severely damaged is smaller than for samples compacted at
compaction temperature from 184 °C to 192 °C. At higher temper- 184 °C and limited to the area of the clamp. For samples compacted
atures, more relaxation of the PP-tapes is allowed and the amount at 192 °C, a clean fracture in the two main directions of the under-

(a) 184 °C (b) 188 °C

100 mm

(c) 192 °C (d) 188 °C with PP film

Fig. 11. Representative samples of penetrated SRPP (a) compacted at 184 °C without interleaved film; (b) compacted at 188 °C without interleaved film; (c) compacted at
192 °C without interleaved film; (d) compacted at 188 °C with interleaved film. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article.)
 Y. Meerten et al. / Composites: Part A 68 (2015) 289–295 295

lying weave architecture is observed. Furthermore, the layers still Alternatively, the size of the clamp can be increased, but then the
adhere to each other after fracture. The use of interleaved film size of the samples should be increased proportionally.
leads to an appearance intermediate to the samples compacted
at 188 °C and 192 °C. Using interleaved films provides additional Acknowledgments
matrix material, increasing the resistance against delamination
and debonding [15]. The authors thank the Agency for Innovation by Science and
Tape-matrix debonding, delamination and tape fracture all con- Technology in Flanders (IWT) for the Grant of Y. Swolfs. I. Verpoest
tribute to the impact resistance. At 184 °C, visual inspection shows holds the Toray Chair in Composite Materials at KU Leuven.
that delamination and tape-matrix debonding are the main failure
mechanisms. It was found in Section 3.2 ‘‘Effect of specimen thick- References
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