Acoustic Emission Techniques for Evaluating Damage Modes in CFRP Hybrid Joints

Abstract

The Acoustic Emission (AE) technique is one of the powerful Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) tools for predicting and assessing damages in composite structures. In this research work, the energy released during each acoustic event, as a function of the total number of counts, is used for evaluating the damage modes in CFRP hybrid joints. The damage modes identified using the AE parameter, Energy per Count () is compared with the waveforms of the acoustic events. Generally, the type of damage mode can be identified by postprocessing the acoustic waveforms. By comparing the waveforms with the , the damage mode has been evaluated. The technique introduced in this work will reduce the data storage and computation time for analyzing the waveforms. The damage modes can be identified during loading using this technique. In addition to that, the location of the generated acoustic events is used for identifying the critical failure areas in the CFRP hybrid joints. The attenuation of the AE events due to the distance between the sensors and the AE source is also considered for this study. From the observed results, the AE technique proves to be one of the formidable techniques for evaluating damage modes in composite structures.