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Fiber metal laminates are commonly used materials in industrial applications due to low density and excellent mechanical properties such as impact resistance. In this study, the effect of shape memory alloy wires on the impact properties of fiber metal laminates is evaluated and discussed. The volume fraction of wires and the pre-strain of wires were selected as the variables of the experiments. The samples were fabricated using hand lay-up method and their behavior was evaluated under high-velocity impact test. Based on the results, a significant change in the amount of absorbed energy was obtained using embedded wires. However, with increasing the volume fraction of wires, the absorbed energy decreases due to the discontinuity in mechanical properties of the specimens. On the other hand, applying pre-strain leads to residual stresses in samples. The observed residual stress in specimens with four embedded wires and 2% pre-strain level shows the most absorbed energy.

In this study, the potential of superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) wire to enhance the tensile strength of a glass fibers reinforced epoxy composite was evaluated. Composite specimens with one embedded SMA wire fabricated with hand‐layup method. The specimens were placed under tensile loading (pre‐tension) and unloaded before ultimate tensile strength. The pre‐tension amounts were 65, 75, and 85% of ultimate tensile strength. After unloading, SMA wire wants to transform to the austenite phase and recover its primary shape and a large amount of compressive stress will be released over the composite specimens. Results show that the ultimate tensile strength for specimen with 75% pre‐tension was 32% higher than the composite without pre‐tension. This pre‐tension has the best effect on ultimate tensile strength and pretension of specimens before ultimate tensile strength leads to higher tensile strength due to the high superelasticity of the SMA wires. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:E2454–E2459, 2018. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers