Composite materials/structures are advancing in product efficiency, cost-effectiveness and the development of superior specific properties. There are increasing demands in their applications to loa...

/pdf/non-destructive-testing-and-evaluation-of-composite-25jy7cttmq.pdf

Non-destructive testing and evaluation of composite materials/structures: A state-of-the-art review

Advances, limitations and prospects of nondestructive testing and evaluation of thick composites and sandwich structures: A state-of-the-art review

Composite materials/structures are advancing in product efficiency, cost-effectiveness and the development of superior specific properties. There are increasing demands in their applications to load-carrying structures in aerospace, wind turbines, transportation, and medical equipment, etc. Thus robust and reliable non-destructive testing (NDT) of composites is essential to reduce safety concerns and maintenance costs. There have been various NDT methods built upon different principles for quality assurance during the whole lifecycle of a composite product. This paper reviews the most established NDT techniques for detection and evaluation of defects/damage evolution in composites. These include acoustic emission, ultrasonic testing, infrared thermography, terahertz testing, shearography, digital image correlation, as well as X-ray and neutron imaging. For each NDT technique, we cover a brief historical background, principles, standard practices, equipment and facilities used for composite research. We also compare and discuss their benefits and limitations, and further summarise their capabilities and applications to composite structures. Each NDT technique has its own potential and rarely achieves a full-scale diagnosis of structural integrity. Future development of NDT techniques for composites will be directed towards intelligent and automated inspection systems with high accuracy and efficient data processing capabilities.

The use of X-ray computed tomography for design and process modeling of aerospace composites: A review

Freeform parameterizations to reproduce structure deformation are increasingly important topics in laser-scanner-based deformation analyses. High-accuracy assurance of free-form surface approximati...

Optimized free-form surface modeling of point clouds from laser-based measurement

Polymer composite materials are being increasingly used in primary load-bearing structures in several advanced industrial fields such as aerospace vessels, railway wagons and mega-scaled wind turbines where detection of subcritical damage initiation can significantly reduce safety issues and maintenance costs. It is therefore crucial to inspect these composite structures in order to assess their structural health and to ensure their integrity. Non-destructive testing techniques (NDT) are used for this purpose, making it possible to monitor mechanical damage of composite materials under in situ or ex situ service conditions. This paper reviews the capabilities of the most common NDT techniques used to inspect the integrity of composite materials. Each technique has a detection potential and cannot allow a full diagnosis of the mechanical damage state of the material. Thus, depending on the occurring damage mechanism and the conditions of use, one technique will be preferred over another, or several techniques should be combined to improve the diagnosis of the damage state of the structures.

Pierre Duchene

Papers

A review of non-destructive techniques used for mechanical damage assessment in polymer composites