Influence of Water on Energy Absorption of Filament Winding Ring under Lateral Impact Loading

Abstract

Fiber reinforced plastics that have good specific strength and rigidity are used in many fields. Recently, they are applied as components of high speed vehicles such as automobile, aircraft and spacecraft. Such vehicles need a large absorbing capacity of energy to secure passengers from impact caused by collisions with stones, hailstones and birds. In the earlier paper on this work, it was found that, when FW rings having some notches along the internal circumference of the ring were subjected to lateral impact loading, interlarminar fracture appeared but the absorbing energy increased under constant impact load. So such a notched FW ring shows ideal characteristics as the shock absorbing component. However, some problems may occur such as that energy absorption characteristics are influenced by the direction of impact loading. In addition, FRP used as a component of transportation vehicles may be exposed to various environments such as water or thermal environments. So, it is also necessary to investigate the energy absorbing ablity of FRP exposed to such environments.
In this paper, FW rings are exposed to water environment and hot wet environment to cause the deterioration of rings, and then the impact loading tests of FW rings are carried out in order to obtain the ideal load-time history and energy absorption as well as the influence of water environment on energy absorption. As a result, the influence of water environment is made clear and the ideal load-time history as shock absorber is obtained in some conditions.