Acoustic emission in composite laminates

The response of a laminated plate to internal acoustic emission events is examined in detail. The plate consists of four layers of a unidirectional fiber composite material arranged in a cross-ply configuration. The sources considered include a vertical line couple, a horizontal line couple and a line double couple without moment. The latter is produced by the combination of two equal and opposite line couples and may be associated with a shear dislocation in the plane of the laminate. The particular response presented here is that of the normal upper surface displacement. Four different orientations of the line sources relative to the core fiber direction are considered. The sources may be located at any depth within the plate and results are shown for three locations, namely, the upper interface, the midplane and the lower interface. The receiver is positioned on the upper surface at a known distance from the line of action of the source. When this distance is small relative to the depth of the plate, it is possible to associate some of the peaks and troughs present in the response with the arrival of individual rays. At larger distances, the disturbance arises from the propagating Rayleigh Lamb modes.