Influence of thermal and optical material properties on the characterization of defects in fiber reinforced composites with active thermography methods

This paper presents results of the non-destructive evaluation of CFRP and GFRP test specimens with various artificial defects using active thermography. After heating the specimens with flash lamps or with an infrared radiator, the temporal and spatial resolved temperature distribution is recorded with an infrared camera. For the reconstruction of the experimental data, a numerical model was developed. For the numerical simulations, the thermal and optical material parameters had to be determined, which is described in this contribution as well. The results of numerical modelling are compared to experimental data of active thermography. Additionally, the experimental results are assessed related to the two materials CFRP and GFRP by considering the partial transmissivity of the GFRP material, and to the different excitation sources.