Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Impact‐Induced Delamination in E‐Glass/Epoxy Laminated Composites Under Artificial Marine Environment

ABSTRACT E‐Glass fibers with Epoxy resin are widely used in marine industries as a substitute for conventional metals due to their low specific weight and high strength. This study represents Investigation of E‐Glass Epoxy laminated composite under drop weight impact test as per ASTM‐D7136M in artificial marine environment. The composite specimen with different orientations was manufactured using compression mold. Artificial sea water tank of 3.5% salinity was prepared, and specimens were kept for 15 and 30 days at three different temperatures (4°C, 23°C, and 45°C). As per impact energy breaking standard, specimens were tested and comparative study has been proposed for the three different orientations with immersed period. The immersion time and temperature have been observed to have marginal effect on the impact strength. Fiber orientation was found to be a vital parameter affecting the impact resistance across all the test cases. The changes in delamination area due to temperature are reported. Numerical simulation of experimental observations was carried out by FEM to validate the delamination area and damage pattern of specimens. Machine learning‐based regression models were further employed as a data‐driven validation tool to assess delamination behavior using impact response parameters to demonstrate consistency with both experimental and finite element results.