Detection of delamination damage in composite beams and plates using wavelet analysis

Abstract

The effectiveness of wavelet transform in detecting delamination damages in multilayered composite beams and plates is studied here. The damaged composite beams and plates are modeled in finite element software ABAQUS and the first few mode shapes are obtained. The mode shapes of the damaged structures are then wavelet transformed. It is observed that the distribution of wavelet coefficients can identify the damage location of beams and plates by showing higher values of wavelet coefficients at the position of damage. The effectiveness of the method is studied for different boundary conditions, damage location and size for single as well as multiple delaminations in composite beams and plates. It is observed that both discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) can detect the presence and location of the damaged region from the mode shapes of the structures. DWT may be used to approximately evaluate the size of the delamination area, whereas, CWT is efficient to detect smaller delamination areas in composites.