comparative study on impact responses of sandwich composites with stiff and compliant core materials

The current investigation focused on the finite element analysis (fea) study on the outcome of sandwich composite’s low to high-velocity impact responses. the sandwich structure comprises jute, natural rubber as skin, and epoxy/ natural rubber as a core, mixed with sand as a filler (0%-40%) material for bonding skin, and core b-stage cured natural-based prepreg is employed. the structure is impacted with a low velocity of 10 m/sec, an intermediate of 50 m/sec, a high-velocity impact of 100m/sec, and ballistic velocity impact of 350 m/sec. based on the results in terms of energy absorption, filler plays a vital role in increasing energy absorption capabilities for all configurations. the sandwich structure with rubber as the core offers better energy absorption capability because of its flexible nature. for further study, sandwich structures with a 40% sand filler were examined, with a velocity limit of 350 m/s. varying the core thickness from 5 to 20 mm revealed that increasing the core thickness and filler composition in both configurations results in 0.37% for fr40f and 1.70% for fe40f higher energy absorption. rubber core sandwiches outperformed epoxy core, suggesting the potential utility of rubber and sand-filled cores in ballistic-loaded sandwich structures.