One-sided ultrasonic inspection to detect flaws in CFRP composite solid laminates

Abstract

The importance of Carbon Fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been generally recognized, and the CFRP composite laminates are widely used. When ultrasonic inspection is applied on actual aircraft components, the part geometry often lacks flat and parallel faces and the benefit of a backwall echo maybe unavailable. So, it is very necessary to detect flaws and defects in the CFRP composite solid laminates due to the flaws of CFRP composite laminates affecting the properties of the laminate. Firstly, we used miniature potted angle beam transducers (designed for generating mode-converted shear waves or Rayleigh waves in steel) on solid laminates of composites. A pair of such transducers was mounted in a holder in a nose-to-nose fashion to be used as a scanning probe on composites. Secondly, a method was utilized to determine the porosity content of a composite lay-up by processing micrograph images of the laminate. The results from the image processing method are compared with existing data. C-scan images of CFRP samples, which were based on the impacted samples were then produced by combining the pitch-catch probe with a portable manual scanner known as the Generic Scanner ("GenScan"). The signal amplitude of pitch-catch C-scan images was also correlated to the volume percent of porosity in carbon composite laminates. Finally, a simulation was performed with the numerical Wave-2000 Code for predicting the ultrasonic wave in the sample.