Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302

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Materials and Design

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Hybrid composites based on aramid and basalt woven fabrics: Impact damage
modes and residual flexural properties
Fabrizio Sarasini a,⇑, Jacopo Tirillò a, Marco Valente a, Luca Ferrante a, Salvatore Cioffi b, Salvatore Iannace b,
Luigi Sorrentino b
a
Department of Chemical Engineering Materials Environment, Sapienza-Università di Roma, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Roma, Italy
b
Institute of Composite and Biomedical Materials, National Research Council, Piazzale Enrico Fermi n° 1, Località Granatello, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The low-velocity impact behaviour of hybrid laminates reinforced with woven aramid and basalt fabrics
Received 11 November 2012 and manufactured by resin transfer moulding was studied. Specimens with different stacking sequences
Accepted 4 January 2013 were tested at three different energies, namely 5, 12.5 and 25 J. Residual post-impact properties of the
Available online 20 January 2013
different configurations of aramid/basalt hybrid laminates were characterized by quasi static four point
bending tests. Post-impact flexural tests have been monitored using acoustic emission in order to get fur-
Keywords: ther information on failure mechanisms. Results indicate that hybrid laminates with intercalated config-
Polymer matrix composites
uration (alternating sequence of basalt and aramid fabrics) have better impact energy absorption
Basalt fibres
Hybrid laminates
capability and enhanced damage tolerance with respect to the all-aramid laminates, while basalt and
Low velocity impact hybrid laminates with sandwich-like configuration (seven basalt fabric layers at the centre of the lami-
Acoustic emission nate as core and three aramid fabric layers for each side of the composite as skins) present the most
favourable flexural behaviour.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction homogeneous reinforcements stacked in a specified sequence; (ii)

The properties of engineering materials can be thought of as
defining the axes of a multi-dimensional space with each property
as a dimension, as suggested by Ashby and Bréchet [1]. Sections
through this space can be mapped and these maps reveal that
some areas of property-space are occupied, others are empty—
there are holes which can be filled by making hybrids: combina-
tions of two (or more) materials, or of material in space, in chosen
configuration and scale. Among the family of hybrids, the class of
hybrid composites is gaining considerable interest in recent years.
Hybrid composites are characterized by the use of two or more
types of fibres embedded in the matrix as reinforcing phase. They
exhibit unique features that can be used to meet diverse and com-
peting design requirements in a more cost-effective way than con-
ventional composites. Some of the specific advantages of hybrids
over conventional composites are balanced strength and stiffness,
balanced thermal distortion stability, reduced weight and/or cost,
improved fatigue resistance, reduced notch sensitivity, improved
fracture toughness and impact resistance [2–4].
Hybrid composites are generally classified in five types accord-
ing to the way the constituents are mixed [5,6]: (i) interply (or
interspersed) hybrids which consist of plies from two or more
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0644585408.
E-mail address: fabrizio.sarasini@uniroma1.it (F. Sarasini).
intraply hybrids which consist of two or more different fibres
mixed in the same ply; (iii) intimately mixed (intermingled) hy-
brids where the constituent fibres are mixed as randomly as possi-
ble so that no aggregates of either type are present in the material;
(iv) selective placement in which reinforcements are placed where
additional strength is needed, over the base reinforcing laminate
layer; (v) superhybrid composites which are composed of metal
foils (or metal composite plies) and resin composite plies stacked
in a specified sequence.
Considerable data have been generated for hybrid composites,
since the material combinations are quite numerous. In this regard,
most of the literature refers to carbon/glass [7–9], carbon/aramid
[4,10–12], carbon/polyethylene fibres [13–15] mainly aimed at
improving the impact resistance of carbon based laminates. During
the last decade, an increasing interest has risen in a relatively new
class of hybrid materials based on synthetic (mainly glass fibres)
and natural fibres or different natural fibres [16–22], with the
aim of manufacturing more environmentally friendly composites.
As a result of ever stricter environmental requirements, also fibres
of mineral origin, such as basalt, are increasingly investigated. In
particular, basalt fibres have recently gained attention as possible
replacement for glass or carbon fibres [23–25]. Basalt fibres are
inorganic and have similar strength and modulus but much better
thermal properties than glass ones though the quality of the fibre is
very sensitive to the processing parameters [26]. Nonetheless, in

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.01.010
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302 291

Table 1
Parameters obtained from impact tests for basalt, aramid and hybrid composites.

Specimen Peak force (N) Maximum displacement (mm) Impact energy (J) Absorbed energy (J) Damage degree
Energy: 5 J
B 3511.98 ± 64.27 2.33 ± 0.03 4.85 ± 0.01 1.84 ± 0.09 0.38 ± 0.01
T 3554.63 ± 143.81 2.20 ± 0.07 4.76 ± 0.04 2.17 ± 0.10 0.46 ± 0.02
BT-HI 3280.46 ± 162.34 2.45 ± 0.09 4.78 ± 0.06 2.22 ± 0.20 0.46 ± 0.05
BT-HS 3251.74 ± 98.75 2.39 ± 0.05 4.81 ± 0.06 2.22 ± 0.08 0.46 ± 0.02
Energy: 12.5 J
B 5654.42 ± 16.62 3.92 ± 0.09 12.38 ± 0.01 6.71 ± 0.19 0.54 ± 0.01
T 4503.78 ± 300.84 3.95 ± 0.15 12.41 ± 0.09 8.07 ± 0.14 0.65 ± 0.01
BT-HI 5485.13 ± 160.24 4.00 ± 0.15 12.38 ± 0.01 7.13 ± 0.31 0.57 ± 0.02
BT-HS 5515.60 ± 43.43 3.98 ± 0.07 12.38 ± 0.01 6.85 ± 0.20 0.55 ± 0.02
Energy: 25 J
B 7238.07 ± 117.11 6.06 ± 0.17 25.29 ± 0.01 20.66 ± 0.50 0.82 ± 0.02
T 4586.03 ± 327.18 7.14 ± 0.52 25.36 ± 0.04 21.28 ± 0.46 0.84 ± 0.02
BT-HI 6383.36 ± 160.67 6.73 ± 0.39 25.33 ± 0.03 21.73 ± 0.33 0.86 ± 0.01
BT-HS 6944.76 ± 146.60 6.24 ± 0.01 25.30 ± 0.01 21.28 ± 0.28 0.84 ± 0.01

Fig. 1. Typical force vs. time response of composite laminates at incident energy of Fig. 3. Typical force vs. time response of composite laminates at incident energy of
5 J. 25 J.

Fig. 2. Typical force vs. time response of composite laminates at incident energy of
12.5 J.
order to widen the application fields of basalt fibre composites, an
improvement of their impact resistance is desirable.
It is widely accepted that an improvement in the impact prop-
erties of polymer composites with high stiffness reinforcements,
such as carbon or glass fibres, can be obtained by mixing them with
more ductile organic fibres, based on aramid, polyester or polyam-
ide polymers, because hybridization of composites combines the
Fig. 4. Typical force vs. displacement response of composite laminates at incident
energy of 5 J.
good mechanical property of high stiffness fibres with the excellent
impact resistance of ductile ones [4,6,27–29]. Limited research has
been performed on hybrid composites made of basalt and ductile
fibres [30–32]. Aramid fibres show a unique combination of high
stiffness, strength, low density and high elongation at fracture that
292 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302
Fig. 5. Typical force vs. displacement response of composite laminates at incident
energy of 12.5 J.
Fig. 6. Typical force vs. displacement response of composite laminates at incident
energy of 25 J.
leads to excellent impact resistance though they are much more
expensive than basalt fibres. Therefore the design of hybrid com-
posites based on these two fibres can reasonably lead to a conve-
nient balance of tensile, flexural and impact properties. In this
study woven basalt–aramid/epoxy hybrid composites were fabri-
cated in interply hybrid structures and subjected to low-velocity
impact using a drop weight apparatus. Specimens with different
lay-up configurations (a major factor governing the overall energy
absorbing capability of the hybrid structure [13]) were tested using
three impact energies and the influence of impact energy on the
flexural residual strength of composites was assessed by quasi-sta-
tic four point bending tests. These post-impact tests were moni-
tored by acoustic emission (AE) and the results of these analyses,
along with those of the impact tests (maximum load and energy
absorbed) were used to understand the role played by aramid fibre
hybridization on the mechanical behaviour under impact of basalt
fibre reinforced epoxy composites.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
The basalt (BAS 220.1270.P) and aramid fabrics (KK 130P, Twa-
ron 2200, 1210 dtex) were plain weave fabrics supplied by Basal-
tex-Flocart NV (Belgium) and G. Angeloni Srl (Italy), respectively.
The fibre areal densities were 220 g/m2 and 130 g/m2 for basalt
Fig. 7. Photos of damage progression of basalt/epoxy (B) composite panels
impacted in the range 5–25 J.
and aramid fabrics, respectively. A bi-component epoxy resin, sup-
plied by Elantas Camattini (Italy) was selected as polymer matrix.
An EC157 epoxy (density at 25 °C = 1.15 g/cm3, viscosity at
25 °C = 700 mPa s) was mixed with a W152 MR amminic hardener
(density at 25 °C = 0.95 g/cm3, viscosity at 25 °C = 30 mPa s) at a
weight ratio of 100/30.
2.2. Composites fabrication and characterization
The laminates were manufactured by a laboratory Resin Trans-
fer Moulding (RTM) system described in [33] and were cured for
12 h at room temperature and 4 h at 70 °C. All configurations were
produced using 13 fabric layers and with a similar volume fraction,
equal to 0.33 ± 0.01, so that the thickness of all the produced con-
figurations was almost constant (3.50 ± 0.15 mm). Two hybrid con-
figurations were manufactured: in the first one (BT-HS) fabrics
were stacked in a sandwich-like sequence with seven basalt fibre
layers (core) and three aramid fibre layers (skins) for each side of
the laminate, while in the second configuration (BT-HI) six layers
of basalt fabrics and seven of aramid fabrics were alternatively
stacked, keeping aramid fabrics as outer layers. Not hybridized ba-
salt (B) and aramid (T) reinforced epoxy composites were also
manufactured as reference configurations.
Specimens with dimensions of 180 mm  60 mm  3.5 mm
(length  width  thickness) for the mechanical characterizations
were cut from 300 mm  300 mm composite laminates.
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302 293

Fig. 8. Photos of damage progression of aramid/epoxy (T) composite panels Fig. 10. Photos of damage progression of hybrid basalt–aramid/epoxy (BT-HI)
impacted in the range 5–25 J. composite panels impacted in the range 5–25 J.

Table 2
Summary of flexural properties for basalt, aramid and hybrid composites.

Specimen Flexural strength (MPa) Flexural modulus (GPa)

Non-impacted
B 229.34 ± 3.24 14.35 ± 0.35
T 219.37 ± 4.15 17.57 ± 0.43
BT-HI 219.59 ± 4.82 16.97 ± 0.39
BT-HS 274.17 ± 5.03 17.43 ± 0.41
Impact Energy: 5 J
B 218.64 ± 3.76 –
T 213.72 ± 1.81 –
BT-HI 209.20 ± 4.01 –
BT-HS 239.54 ± 4.42 –
Impact Energy: 12.5 J
B 207.30 ± 3.09 –
T 197.47 ± 3.16 –
BT-HI 198.71 ± 3.27 –
BT-HS 227.10 ± 5.11 –
Impact Energy: 25 J
B 142.55 ± 3.92 –
T 159.10 ± 3.37 –
BT-HI 155.63 ± 1.43 –
BT-HS 183.45 ± 3.95 –

Four-point bending tests were performed on five specimens for

Fig. 9. Photos of damage progression of hybrid basalt–aramid/epoxy (BT-HS)
composite panels impacted in the range 5–25 J.
each configuration in accordance with ASTM: D6272. A span-to-
depth ratio of 23:1 and a cross-head speed of 2.5 mm/min were
used. Strain gauges were employed to measure the effective strain
and to evaluate the flexural modulus. Specimens were tested in
bending either after their production (non-impacted samples) or
after the low-velocity impact tests to measure their residual flex-
ural strength. Impact conditions were selected in order to assure
that the impact did not result in the full penetration of the lami-
294 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302
Fig. 11. Typical stress vs. strain curves for flexural tests on (a) undamaged and impacted composites at; (b) 5 J; (c) 12.5 J and (d) 25 J.
Fig. 12. Normalized residual flexural strength variation with impact energy.
nate and that the damage extension into the sample did not exceed
the specimen width, even under the highest energy applied.
Impact tests were performed by using a falling dart impact test-
ing machine, model Fractovis Plus from CEAST (Pianezza – TO,
Italy). Specimens were tested at three impact energies (5, 12.5
and 25 J) by keeping constant the mass (6.929 kg) of the indenter
equipped with an hemispherical head (diameter equal to
12.7 mm). The sample holder was circular, with the external diam-
eter of 60 mm and the inner one of 40 mm.
Post-impact mechanical behaviour was evaluated by means of a
four-point bending tool, under the same testing conditions previ-
ously described. All the mechanical tests were performed on a
Z010 from Zwick/Roell (Ulm, Germany) universal testing machine
equipped with a 10 kN load cell. Post-impact flexural tests were
monitored by acoustic emission until final fracture occurred using
an AMSY-5 AE system by Vallen Systeme GmbH (Icking, Germany).
The AE acquisition settings used throughout this experimental
work were as follows: threshold = 35 dB, Rearm Time (RT) =
0.4 ms, Duration Discrimination Time (DDT) = 0.2 ms and total
gain = 34 dB. This threshold level was defined from a 30 min track
record of the background noise with the AE setup configuration
actually used, and was set 6 dB above the maximum level of the re-
corded spurious signal from the electronic system. Two broad-
band (100–1500 kHz, Fujicera 1045S) PZT AE sensors were used.
The sensors were placed on the surface of the specimens at both
ends to allow linear localization, with silicone grease as coupling
agent.
3. Results and discussion
The characteristics of composite constituents (matrix and rein-
forcement), the laminate configuration and the loading geometry
can all make the damage process a complex combination of energy
absorption mechanisms such as matrix cracking, transverse fibre
fracture and delamination. Transient response of each laminate
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302 295

Fig. 13. (a) Typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on undamaged aramid laminates; (b) typical amplitude distribution during flexural test on undamaged
aramid laminates; (c) typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on aramid laminates impacted at 25 J; (d) typical amplitude distribution during flexural test
on aramid laminates impacted at 25 J.
296 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302
Fig. 14. Localization plots for (a) undamaged and (b) 25 J-impacted aramid laminates.
was recorded in terms of load, energy and displacement and the
main impact parameters like peak force, impact energy (Ei), maxi-
mum displacement and absorbed energy (Ea) are summarized in
Table 1. Typical force vs. time plots for basalt, aramid and hybrid
laminates impacted at different energy levels are shown in Figs. 1–
3. The contact force history curves for a 5 and 12.5 J-impact (Figs. 1
and 2) are very similar and show two peaks. As reported by many
studies [34], the sudden drop in contact force right after the first
peak (incipient damage point) in this curve indicates the occur-
rence of damage (delamination and/or cracking). The maximum
force represents, as a consequence, the load that the laminate
can tolerate before undergoing major damage. After the maximum
point was reached, the force decreased following almost a linear
and nonoscillating curve corresponding to the release of elastic en-
ergy. As evident in most of laminates impact curves, the peak load
increases with increasing incident kinetic energy, indicating that
they can bear higher energy levels before major damage, and only
T (aramid) samples showed a sort of saturation of the peak force
starting from 12.5 J. Basalt laminates performed better than aramid
ones at high energy levels (12.5 and 25 J) while BT-HS hybrid lam-
inates showed an increased peak force compared to aramid lami-
nates. The lower peak load observed for the aramid composites
could result from the early delamination or debonding between
the layers which is considered the main absorption mechanism
in aramid reinforced laminates [28]. The force–time curves for all
composite samples impacted at 25 J exhibited a different pattern
characterized by a sudden drop right after the maximum force.
This behaviour is usually an indication of back surface-splitting,
which can substantially reduce the resistance (i.e., the out-of-plane
stiffness) of the composite, thus resulting in a sharp drop in the
force–time diagram. After the peak load, the load–time curves
showed much more gradual decrease for aramid and BT-HI hy-
brids, suggesting a less catastrophic failure. All composites showed
a residual resistance after impact, as confirmed by the impactor’s
rebound after the impact event. The detected energy progressively
increased with the impact energy level, until the maximum deflec-
tion was reached. Due to the absence of penetration, some elastic
energy was recovered during unloading down to a constant value
corresponding to the impactor’s detachment from the laminate
surface. The unrecovered energy represented the amount of energy
absorbed by the composite structure through permanent damage
and is the difference between the peak value and the residual
one. The absorbed energies are summarized in Table 1. As shown,
basalt composites absorbed less energy compared to the other
types of laminates at all impact energy levels, while aramid and
sandwich-like hybrid composites absorbed much more energy.
The tough aramid layers in the outer surface enable absorption
of impact energy through large deformations and fibre/matrix slip-
ping, while in intercalated hybrids basalt layers prevent aramid
layers from exploiting their full deformation. In this regard, basalt
fibres behave in different way if compared with stiff glass fibres
which usually inhibit aramid layers from deforming and tend to
localize the damage [28].
Contact force vs. displacement curves characterize the impact
behaviour of composite laminates and are usually used to discuss
their impact properties. The force–displacement plots correspond-
ing to each energy level are shown in Figs. 4–6. All these curves
showed a closed pattern, as both load and displacement decrease
to the axis origin, confirming that some elastic energy has been
recovered causing the impactor’s rebound. It is evident that the
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302 297

Fig. 15. (a) Typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on undamaged basalt laminates; (b) typical amplitude distribution during flexural test on undamaged
basalt laminates; (c) typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on basalt laminates impacted at 25 J; (d) typical amplitude distribution during flexural test on
basalt laminates impacted at 25 J.

area under the curves increases with impact energy, indicating an fined as the ratio between the absorbed energy and the impact en-
increase of both absorbed energy and damages in the laminate. In ergy [35] which is lower than one up to the penetration, where it
Table 1 it is also reported the so called damage degree, which is de- becomes equal to one. In the tested laminates, this parameter in-
298 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302
Fig. 16. Localization plots for (a) undamaged and (b) 25 J-impacted basalt laminates.
creases with increasing impact energy, reaching a maximum value
of 0.86 for BT-HI composites, suggesting that they can dissipate a
higher amount of the impact energy. This confirms the effective
capability of woven basalt fabric to improve or at least not degrade
the impact energy absorption of aramid composites.
Figs. 7–10 show the pictures of damage progression in the com-
posite panels as the impact energy grows. Basalt/epoxy laminates
(Fig. 7) exhibited cross-shaped cracks and debonding on the front
face with associated severe matrix cracking and some back surface
splitting after the impact at 25 J. Aramid (Fig. 8) and BT-HS (Fig. 9)
laminates showed a pattern which is characterized by a deep
indentation on the front surface and a pronounced dome on the
back face with considerable degree of deformation followed by
cracks, especially at the highest impact energy. A pronounced
indentation of the upper surface is present in the sandwich-like
laminate, which also shows a marked dome on the back surface.
This can be related to the presence of different consecutive layers
of aramid fabric, at the top and bottom of the composite, which
does not inhibit to a great extent the deformation of the organic fi-
bres. On the contrary, the intercalated sequence of aramid and ba-
salt fabrics limits the strain of the structure and large deformations
are not allowed (Fig. 10) [32].
The increasing trend of damaging for all materials with the in-
crease of the impact energy is matched by the reduction of the
residual flexural strength. Table 2 summarizes flexural properties
of undamaged and impact damaged composites while Fig. 11
shows the comparison of the typical flexural responses of undam-
aged and impact-damaged composite samples. The aramid com-
posites exhibited for not impacted and 5 J impacted specimens
curves characterized by a yielding stage and a long ultimate deflec-
tion, thus suggesting an increase in energy absorption and a good
damage tolerance. The flexure curve is strongly nonlinear, which
is consistent with the nonlinear compressive behaviour of compos-
ites reinforced with aramid fibres [36]. During flexural tests the
failure of both sides, one in tension and the other in compression,
was detected. This is due to the poor transverse and shear proper-
ties of aramid fibres which result in a composite with a poor com-
pression strength. The same behaviour in bending was found for
non-impacted BT-HS hybrids. The curves became very similar with
increasing impact energy for all types of composites. In order to
better evaluate the influence of impact damage on the residual
properties, the normalized flexural strength of each laminate con-
figuration was calculated as the ratio between the mean flexural
strength of the impacted specimens and the mean flexural strength
of undamaged specimens and represented in Fig. 12 as a function
of the impact energy. The quasi-static flexural tests for undamaged
specimens confirmed the lowest stiffness of basalt laminates com-
pared to the aramid ones, due to the higher modulus of twaron fi-
bres. It is worth noting the positive role on flexural stiffness and
strength due to the hybridization which allows properties that
are intermediate between those of all aramid and basalt laminates
or even higher, as was the case for flexural strength. This behaviour
can be explained on the basis of a synergistic effect, called hybrid-
ization, which can cause the resultant mechanical property to devi-
ate from the linear Rule of Hybrid Mixtures (RoHMs) [37,38]. As
expected, impact reduced the flexural strength but did not signifi-
cantly affect the shape of the flexural response, as shown in Fig. 14,
except for T and BT-HS composites which showed a strongly re-
duced strain at break. The degradation of flexural modulus with
increasing impact energy was not detected since, as experienced
in other works, impact often reduces strength in a more pro-
nounced way with respect to the laminate stiffness [39,40]. De-
spite BT-HS hybrid composites outperformed the other laminates
at all impact energies, a sharp reduction in the normalized flexural
strength occurred, thus indicating a poor damage tolerance capa-
bility of the sandwich-like laminate (Fig. 12). Basalt composites
(B) showed a good damage tolerance, which appears to be signifi-
cantly compromised only at the highest impact energy (25 J) whilst
aramid laminate (T) appears the best laminate configuration with
respect to the damage tolerance. The positive role of intercalated
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302 299

Fig. 17. (a) Typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on BT-HS laminates impacted at 25 J; (b) typical amplitude distribution during flexural test on BT-HS
laminates impacted at 25 J; (c) typical AE amplitude vs. time response during flexural test on BT-HI laminates impacted at 25 J; (d) typical amplitude distribution during
flexural test on BT-HI laminates impacted at 25 J.
300 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302

Fig. 18. Localization plots for (a) BT-HS and (b) BT-HI laminates impacted at 25 J.

Fig. 19. Amplitude vs. duration correlation plot for (a) BT-HS impacted at 25 J and (b) BT-HI impacted at 25 J.
 F. Sarasini et al. / Materials and Design 49 (2013) 290–302
Fig. 20. Close-up view of (a) BT-HS specimens impacted at 25 J and (b) BT-HI specimens impacted at 25 J after flexural test.
hybridization is evident in the damage tolerance capability, since
BT-HI hybrids show a favourable degradation pattern, very similar
to that of aramid laminates.
Since the final failure of composites is caused by superposition
of different failure modes such as matrix cracking, debonding and
fibre breakage, acoustic emission technique was used to obtain
more information about the level of damage incurred at the differ-
ent impact energies and to monitor the damage growth and devel-
opment in the laminates during the flexural tests. The higher
energy absorption and damage tolerance of aramid laminates with
respect to the basalt ones can be ascribed to the higher toughness
of aramid fibres which allows the laminate to undergo extensive
deformation. Another mechanism is due to interface failures since
for aramid/epoxy composites the interface is thought to be a par-
ticularly weak link. Moreover, the fibre surface is microscopically
smooth, preventing lock-and-key bonding and the interface
strength is believed to depend on the London dispersion and van
der Waals forces [41]. Both basalt and aramid laminates show sig-
nificant AE signals since the beginning of loading, both for the
undamaged and impacted specimens (Figs. 13a and 15a, respec-
tively). These signals can be attributed to matrix cracks and inter-
face failures which in literature are usually associated to
amplitudes in the range 35–50 dB and 55–65 dB, respectively
[42,43]. Most of AE signals belong to these intervals, as can be seen
from Figs. 13b and 15b. Except for an increase in the number of AE
signals with increasing impact energy, the amplitude distributions
do not show any significant change for aramid laminates (Fig. 13d),
thus suggesting that the failures modes are essentially the same,
mainly ascribed to interface failures in the compression side. The
presence of impact in basalt laminates tends to emphasize the
importance of interface failures (pull-out and delaminations,
Fig. 15c and d) and to localize the damage (Fig. 16). This behaviour
occurred also in aramid laminates, as can be seen in Fig. 14. These
interface phenomena, together with higher deformation, appear to
be the most relevant energy dissipation mechanism for basalt and
aramid laminates.
The hybrid laminates with sandwich configuration show a high-
er number of AE signals at all impact energies (Fig. 17) due to the
larger damage area caused by impact events (Fig. 18). Furthermore,
intercalated hybrids are characterized by higher number of AE sig-
nals of medium–high amplitude (60–75 dB) and long duration
(>1 ms) (Fig. 19) which can be due to the fact that more delaminat-
ing surfaces are present in intercalated hybrids, and therefore there
is a larger number of AE activity sources in the laminate. Damage
partition between internal interfaces enables BT-HI, although less
resistant than BG-HS hybrids, to show a lower degradation of their
strength at higher impact energies, when extensive damage is
present. In contrast, in BG-HS hybrids the failure mechanism is
dominated by the growth of a main delamination at the basalt/
glass interface located in the tension side (Fig. 20).
301
4. Conclusions
The effects of hybridization of basalt fibres on low velocity im-
pact response, damage resistance, and damage tolerance capability
of aramid fabric reinforced epoxy composites have been experi-
mentally investigated. Laminates were impacted at energy levels
ranging from 5 J up to 25 J. Two different hybrid laminate configu-
rations were prepared: one with a sandwich-like stacking se-
quence and the other with an intercalated fabrics lay-up. For
comparison, all aramid/epoxy and all basalt/epoxy laminates were
also considered. The main conclusions that can be drawn are the
following:
 Basalt laminates showed a relatively poor damage resistance
and tolerance capability (especially at high impact energy,
namely 25 J) compared to aramid laminates, but this was
enhanced by the hybridization with aramid layers.
 The aramid-skin/basalt-core type (BT-HS) outperformed the
other lay-up sequences in quasi-static testing at all impact
energies, thus suggesting a positive effect played by the
hybridization.
 BT-HI hybrids exhibited better energy absorption capability
when compared to aramid and BT-HS laminates. Hybrid lami-
nates BT-HI presented the most favourable degradation pattern
and the best combination of post-impact flexural strength and
damage tolerance through multiple small delaminations
between dissimilar layers instead of main delamination in the
tension side at the interface between basalt and aramid layers.
The results suggest that is possible to obtain impact absorption
and damage tolerance similar to those of aramid laminates through
the appropriate design of hybrid composites employing the cheap-
er basalt fibres for partial substitution of aramid ones.
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