Application of aluminum foil for “strain sensing” at fatigue damage evaluation of carbon fiber composite

Abstract

Surface layer of a loaded solid is an individual structural level of deformation that was shown numerously within concept of physical mesomechanics. This gives rise to advance in its deformation development under loading as well as allows using this phenomenon to sense the strain induced structure changes. It is of specific importance for composite materials since they are highly heterogeneous while estimating their mechanical state is a topical applied problem. Fatigue tests of carbon fiber composite specimens were carried out for cyclic deformation estimation with the use of strain sensors made of thin (80 μm) aluminum foil glued to the specimen’s surface. The surface images were captured by DSLR camera mounted onto an optical microscope. Strain relief to form during cyclic loading was numerically estimated using different parameters: dispersion, mean square error, universal image quality index, fractal dimension and energy of Fourier spectrum. The results are discussed in view of deformation mismatch in thin foil and bulk specimen and are offered to be applied for the development of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) approach.