Impact Damage Detection in Composite Panels using Guided Ultrasonic Waves

Composite materials such as carbon fiber reinforced panels offer many advantages for aerospace applications, e.g, good strength to weight ratio. However, impact during the operation and servicing of the aircraft can lead to barely visible and difficult to detect damage. Depending on the severity of the impact, fiber breakage or delaminations can be induced which reduce the functionality of the structure. Efficient structural health monitoring of such plate-like components can be achieved using guided ultrasonic waves propagating along the structure and covering critical areas. However, the guided wave propagation in such anisotropic and inhomogeneous materials needs to be understood from theory and verified experimentally to achieve sufficient coverage of the structure. Using noncontact laser interferometer measurements the guided wave propagation in carbon fiber reinforced panels was investigated experimentally. Good agreement with calculations using a full three-dimensional Finite Element (FE) model was achieved. Impact damage was induced in the composite panels and the guided wave scattering at the damage measured and quantified. Good agreement with predictions was found and barely visible impact damage in composite panels detected.