EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF DAMAGE TO THE STRUCTURE OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS OF HIGH-SPEED AIRCRAFT FROM RAINDROP IMPACT EROSION
Bodies moving at very high speeds through a rain-field can experience severe damage caused by the impingement of raindrops on their surfaces. This effect is usually referred to as“rain erosion”. Rain erosion has been a concern of the aviation industries for many decades, and rain erosion resistance is one extremely important parameter of the interaction of materials with the flight environment. In this paper, a single waterjet impact test platform was established based on the first-stage light gas gun in order to conduct the rain erosion tests on materials. Its principle was that the gas gun launches a metallic projectile to impact the water storage chamber sealed by the rubber piston, and then the liquid was driven from the small nozzle to form a high-speed waterjet. The apparatus could generate stable waterjets with speeds of 200-600 m/s, diameters of 4-7 mm and a smooth circular-arc head, which simulated a waterdrop with the same diameter. A series of single waterjet impact tests were carried out on a symmetrically cross-ply carbon-fiber-reinforced composite (CFRP) laminate under different waterjet velocities and diameters. The results show that the typical damage modes of CFRP laminates impacted by single waterjets are as follows. The impacted surface is depressed, and the surface damage consists of resin removal, matrix cracking, minor fiber fracture and fiber exposure around the rim of a central undamaged region. The internal damage range gradually expands from the impact surface to the bottom ply, mainly composed of intralaminar matrix cracking with a pyramid shape and interlaminar delamination with a diamond shape. Both the surface and internal damage are more extensive in the longitudinal than the transversal direction, thus presenting typical.