Abstract
Glass fiber-reinforced polymer structures (GFRPS) are widely used in civil and mechanical fields due to their light weight and corrosion resistance. However, these structures are prone to damage with very-low-energy impacts. The reliability of such structures is of prime importance before their installation and usage. This study aimed to identify, visualize, localize, and verify multiple barely visible impact damage (BVID) in a GFRPS using a combination of guided waves (GW)-based online structural health monitoring (SHM) and thermal strain-based nondestructive testing (NDT) approaches. Global NDT techniques like the use of a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) and digital image correlation (DIC) were used in the experimental analysis. The effectiveness of the experimental LDV-GW process was also checked numerically with the spectral element method (SEM). A threshold-based baseline free SHM approach to effectively localize the damages was proposed along with quick DIC verification of composite structure with thermal loading based on short-pulse heating as an excitation source. This study analyzed combined experimental- and numerical-based SHM-NDT methods in characterizing the multiple BVIDs located in a GFRPS.
Highlights
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We focused on identification, visualization, and localization of the multiple linearly located impact damages and studies were carried out to observe changes in the impact-deformed zones by applying a modified [23] quick thermal strain field technique
Only 200 kHz was chosen as the identified frequency for other radially weighted root mean square (RRMS) and structural health monitoring (SHM) results (Section 4.2)
Summary
The GFRPS laminates have greater strength along the direction of fiber [1] GFPRS are widely used in retrofitting structures in construction industries, and, nowadays, these glass fibers are combined to prepare reinforcement bars for structural strengthening [2]. They are highly preferred due to their high tensile strength, low density, and corrosion resistance [3]. Even though several advantages exist, they have disadvantages like delamination defects, impact cracks [4], internal fiber matrix damage [5], etc. BVID and impact cracks in the GFRPS are of most common that occurs even due to a low-energy impact force and are mostly not visible for internal visual identification
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