Dynamic Impact Testing and Model Development in Support of NASA's Advanced Composites Program

This paper presents an overview of the High Energy Dynamic Impact element of NASA’s Advanced Composites Project (ACP). The paper summarizes the work done for the ACP to advance our understanding of the behavior of composite materials during high energy impact events and to advance the ability of analytical tools to provide predictive simulations. The experimental program carried out at the NASA Glenn Research Center is summarized and a status on the current development state of an advanced computational composite impact model will be provided. Future work will be discussed as the effort transitions from fundamental analysis and testing to investigating sub-component structural concept response to impact events.