Detection of Delamination in Polymer Composites by Digital Image Correlation-Experimental Test.

Gábor Szebényi,Viktor Hliva

doi:10.3390/polym11030523

Gábor Szebényi, Viktor Hliva

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11030523

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Journal: Polymers	Publication Date: Mar 20, 2019
Citations: 20	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced polymer composite structures are frequently used in industries where personal safety is critical; therefore, it is important to periodically estimate or monitor the condition of high value, load bearing structures. The digital image correlation (DIC) is well known as an effective method to obtain full field surface strains; in this paper, it was used to detect artificial damage inside the structures. Carbon or glass fabric reinforced epoxy specimens were produced and tested. All specimens contained an artificial through-delamination which was created by the insertion of different foils of a mould release agent during production. Tensile and compression tests were done while the camera system collected the images of the deformed surface to be analyzed posteriorly. In most cases the approximate locations of delaminations could be effectively detected from strain maps by the localization of zones showing different strain values than intact zones.

Highlights

In the 21st century, fiber-reinforced polymer composite structures are frequently used due to their excellent specific mechanical properties
There are many non-destructive tests used by the industry for detecting imperfections including, but not limited to, computer tomography (CT), infrared thermography (IRT), acoustic emission (AE) and ultrasound test (UT)
The images were collected and analyzed by Mercury RT-v2.6 software run on a computer with an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, 8 GB of RAM and a Patriot Hellfire 480GB M.2

Summary

Introduction

In the 21st century, fiber-reinforced polymer composite structures are frequently used due to their excellent specific mechanical properties. With their use, we are able to build lighter structures and more efficient machines. The main applications of composites are the aerospace and automotive industry, wind turbines, pressure vessels and sport equipment. These applications are critical in terms of personal safety; it is important to periodically estimate or monitor the condition of high value, load-bearing structures. The situation is aggravated by the non-prognostic catastrophic failure of composites. Structural failure is caused in most cases by the synergy of multiple failure processes: fiber breakage, matrix fracture, fiber-matrix debonding/pullout and delamination which arise during use or even production [1,2,3]

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