Composite materials are becoming more popular in technological applications due to the significant weight savings and strength offered by these materials compared to metallic materials. In many of these practical situations, the structures suffer from drop-impact loads. Materials and structures significantly change their behavior when submitted to impact loading conditions compared to quasi-static loading. The present work is devoted to investigating the thermal process in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) subjected to a drop test. A novel drop-weight impact test experiment is performed to evaluate parameters specific to 3D composite materials. A strain gauge rosette and infrared thermography are employed to record the kinematic and thermal fields on the composites’ surfaces. This technique is nondestructive and offers an extensive full-field investigation of a material’s response. The combination of strain and infrared thermography data allows a comprehensive analysis of thermoelastic effects in CFRP when subjected to impacts. The experimental results are validated using numerical analysis by developing a MATLAB® code to analyze whether the coupled heat and wave equation phenomenon exists in a two-dimensional polar coordinate system by discretizing through a forward-time central-space (FTCS) finite-difference method (FDM). The results show the coupling has no significant impact as the waves generated due to impact disappears in 0.015 s. In contrast, heat diffusion happens for over a one-second period. This study demonstrates that the heat equation alone governs the CFRP heat flow process, and the thermoelastic effect is negligible for the specific drop-weight impact load.

Windtech device is a novel tool for measuring the sensation of the ‘cold’. Cold poses numerous challenges for industrial operations, human survival, and living convenience. The impact of the cold is not possible to be quantified just based on temperatures; however other factors such as wind speed, humidity, irradiance have to be taken into consideration. Efforts have been made to develop combined indices such as wind chill temperature (WCT), AccuWeather RealFeel®, and others. The presented article discusses these along with the industrial standards that emphasize on the quantification of the ‘cold’. The following article introduces the Windtech device and its operating principle involving ‘heated temperature’, where the ‘heated temperature’ is affected by environmental parameters including ambient temperature, humidity, wind velocity, and irradiance. The discussed Windtech device is calibrated for operation according to the ISO 11079:2007 standard.