As a result of the increasing use of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites in engineering fields, the investigation of scale effect on impact performance for this kind of composite is essential for large scale structure design. The effects of scaling on the impact response of simply supported unidirectional GFRP were investigated through drop weight impact (DWI) tests in this study. Impact tests were undertaken over a wide range of energies to generate damages between barely visible and initiated penetration on four scale size GFRP laminates. The main impact responses including impact force, contact duration, displacement, energy absorption and damage area of scaled specimens were normalized to compare with the full-size specimen. It was found that the impact response of large sample with elastic deformation and small area of delamination can be predicted accurately according to a geometrical similar scaling law. Scale effect was found in the damage threshold force and absorbed energy of the laminates when significant internal damage occurs due to the microstructural effect becoming important in resisting impact force and absorbing impact energy. Moreover, the energy partition and effective stiffness were calculated according to the energy balance model to reveal the contribution of different modes of deformations on energy absorption for the GFRP laminates.
Keywords: fiber reinforced composite; impact damage; low-velocity impact; scale effect.