Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Plate Research Articles

Buckling, bending and dynamic analyses of laminated three-phase polymer/graphene/carbon fiber composite rectangular plates

The bending and dynamic buckling analysis of graphene reinforced with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite plates was investigated in this study. The CFRP composites were fabricated using the hand layup method. The mechanical characteristics of CFRP composites with 0–1 wt% graphene reinforcement were evaluated using ASTM tests. The experimental dynamic analysis is carried out on graphene reinforced CFRP composites. A higher order finite element (FE) formulation is implemented to compute the characteristics of the CFRP plate using MATLAB software. The FE model's validity is compared to numerical data reported in the literature, and the results demonstrate excellent agreement. Furthermore, parametric analysis is performed to explore the influence of wt.% of graphene, aspect ratios, and end conditions on the bending and dynamic buckling properties of graphene reinforced with CFRP composite plates.

A Hybrid Deep Learning Framework Based on Diffusion Model and Deep Residual Neural Network for Defect Detection in Composite Plates

The establishment of a structural health monitoring (SHM) system for the damage and defects of composite structures is of great theoretical and engineering value to ensure their production and operational safety. Advanced machine learning technologies, such as deep learning, have become one of the main driving forces for state monitoring and predictive analysis of these structures. However, it is difficult to obtain sufficient data to train the deep learning model, which may fail to build an accurate and efficient SHM model. To overcome this problem, a new method based on Lamb waves and the diffusion model (DM) is proposed to realize the identification and classification of different defects for carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) structures. In this study, DM is used as the generation model of data enhancement, and the optimized and improved DDPM model is constructed in this experiment. The deep residual neural network (DenseNet) is used to identify and classify the defect features from the Lamb wave signals. Experimental and test results show that the deep learning framework designed in this study based on DenseNet classification and DDPM data enhancement can accurately detect and classify damage signals of common defects in CFRP composite plates.

Detection and quantification of artificial delaminations in CFRP composites using ultrasonic thermography

Delamination is inevitable during either fabrication or service of a carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) component. These flaws are major degradation phenomena that are difficult to be detected by nondestructive testing techniques, especially for closed delamination. This study performed an experimental investigation on delamination detection in CFRP plates using ultrasonic thermography with an ultrasonic transducer. In this work, a CFRP composite plate with delaminations was manufactured by a compression molding process. The ultrasonic was excited in the specimen and the heat was activated at the delaminations. Temperature distribution on the specimen surface was recorded by an infrared camera. The effects of wave propagation distance, delamination size, and depth were analyzed. Furthermore, the three most established signal processing techniques of thermography, namely thermal signal reconstruction (TSR), principal component analysis (PCA), and fast Fourier transform (FFT) were employed to deal with the subtracted-background thermal data. The performance of each algorithm was evaluated by temperature contrast, and global signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Finally, the delamination area was quantitatively measured by Otsu’s thresholding method. The results indicate that the first and second principal components (PC1 and PC2) of PCA provide the highest SNR and the largest number of delaminations detected, respectively. The delamination of ϕ5 and a depth of 1.5 mm can be detected with excellent image quality. Hence, ultrasonic thermography can provide an efficient and cost-effective thermographic method for delamination detection in CFRP structures.

A dual-scale morphological filtering method for composite damage identification using FBP

Delamination is the main type of defect that reduces the performance of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite materials and can be detected by traditional linear ultrasonic methods. However, the traditional ultrasonic inspection method only analyzes its position through the waveform change, and it is difficult to intuitively and accurately study the specific shape and position of the defect in the form of images. This study obtains delamination defect images of CFRP composite plates through fan-beam ultrasonic computed tomography (UCT) and finite element simulation. The Filtered back-projection method based on UCT is used as the basic algorithm for reconstructing layered defect images of CFRP plates. To obtain accurate defect size and location, a novel dual-scale morphological filtering (DSMF) method combined with Canny operator is proposed for edge detection of delamination defects. The DSMF method alternately filters by combining two structuring elements of different sizes while suppressing noise as much as possible and preserving the edge details of the image. As the results verify, the use of the DSMF method combined with Canny edge-detection for edge detection significantly reduces the average recognition error from 16.83% to 4.37% compared to existing methods. The results show that the DSMF method can effectively reduce the influence of artifact interference and non-edge pixels on defect-recognition; thus, the size and contour information of the obtained defects are more accurate than existing methods. Experimental studies using realistic composite plates further validated the proposed method. The method of ultrasonic tomography combined with Canny edge detection based on a DSMF method can be well applied to edge detection and contour recognition of layered defects in CFRP materials.

Assessment of damage in composites using static component generation of ultrasonic guided waves

Static component (SC) generation of guided waves (GWs), which combines the high sensitivity of acoustic nonlinearity to micro-damage and low attenuative effect, has great potential for damage assessment in large composite structures. The present work explores the use of SC generation of GWs for assessing damages in carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite laminates. The features including mode, waveform, and cumulative effect of the generated SC in composites are numerically investigated by three-dimensional finite element modeling and simulation. A dynamic displacement measurement method based on piezoelectric transducers is accordingly proposed and experimentally verified. The cumulative SC pulse generated from primary GW tone-burst with a finite duration, is observed and verified numerically and experimentally. It is found that the magnitude of the generated SC pulse is linearly proportional to the quadratic material nonlinearity. Experimental results demonstrate that the generated SC pulse of GW under group velocity matching condition, is an effective means to assess the hygrothermal damage and low-velocity impact damage in CFRP composite plates. The performed experimental examination validates the feasibility of the proposed approach for damage assessment in CFRP composites.

Application of edge detection based on hexagonal image structure to delamination detection of carbon fiber reinforced polymer material

Delamination is one of the most critical damage modes in carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials, and is invisible to the naked eye. Although delamination defect images of CFRP materials can be obtained through ultrasonic tomography, it is still difficult to accurately identify the position and contours of defect images. In this study, four different delamination defect images of CFRP composite plates were obtained through a finite element simulation and fan-beam ultrasonic tomography. A hexagon algorithm based on interpolation is proposed that transforms the reconstructed defect images from square pixels into hexagonal pixels. The interpolation algorithm is based on the overlap between the square and hexagonal pixels. As the experiment results verify, the use of the hexagonal structure-based morphological method for edge detection significantly reduces the recognition error from 7.74% to 0.148% in comparison with a traditional quadrilateral structure. The experimental results also showed that this method can effectively reduce the artifact interference and obtain complete and accurate target edge information more effectively than a square structure.

The Structural Performance of CFRP Composite Plates Assembled with Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites have been extensively used in airframes, train bodies, and engine blades for their properties of high strength, low weight, and good stability. The in-service structural performance of CFRP composites is always an important point to be investigated for its influence on structural safety. For this reason, CFRP composite plates assembled with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were developed, and the in-service structural characteristics of the CFRP plates were interpreted by FBG signals measured through time. A theoretical analysis supported by a numerical method has been provided. Experimental testing was conducted to check the proposed sensing technique for the dynamic response identification of the CFRP plate. The curing process of the bilayer CFRP plated inserted with FBGs in series was also explored. The results showed that the surface-attached FBGs in series could accurately characterize the dynamic response of the CFRP plate, and a good agreement between the numerical and testing results was observed. The strain and temperature distributions during the curing process of the bilayer plate indicated that the in-service structural performance of bilayer CFRP plates can be configured by the assembled FBG sensors. This study can support the structural health monitoring of projects by using CFRP composites.

Influence of Geometry on Failure Modes of Hybrid Metal-Composite Protruding Bolted Joints

This article presents the influence of joint geometry on the damage mode in the CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) composite plate of the single-lap, protruding, hybrid metal-composite joints. A detailed 3D finite element model incorporating geometric, material and friction-based contact full nonlinearities is developed to numerically investigate the geometry effects on the progressive damage analysis (PDA) of the orthotropic material model. The PDA material model integrates the nonlinear shear response, Hashin-tape failure criteria and strain-based continuum degradation rules being developed using the UMAT user subroutine in Nastran commercial software. In order to validate the geometry effects on the failure modes of the joints with hexagonal head bolts, experiments were conducted using the SHM (Structural Health Monitoring) technique. The results showed that the plate geometry is an important parameter in the design process of an adequate bolted joint and its effects on damage initiation and failure modes were quite accurately predicted by the PDA material model, which proved to be computational efficient and can predict failure propagation and damage mechanism in hybrid metal-composite bolted joints.

Impact localization for composite plate using the modified error-outlier algorithm with Pugh’s concept selection under various temperatures

The previous error outlier based impact localization algorithm has a weak point during the impact localization due to a reciprocity problem coupled with the symmetric boundary conditions of target structures. Thus, the modified error outlier based impact localization algorithm was proposed to overcome the improper impact localization due to this reciprocity problem. The previous impact localization method using fiber Bragg grating sensors did not consider the effect of the operating temperature of structures although they were operated under various temperatures. Thus, this study experimentally verified the error outlier impact localization algorithm by performing impact localization for a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite plate under various temperatures. It was found that the total average error of 2.0 mm was estimated under the given temperatures, being only 2.5% of the pre-assigned grid size of 80.0 mm on the plate. Therefore, we concluded that the modified algorithm can overcome the reciprocity problems and be sufficiently used for impact localization using fiber Bragg grating sensors under various temperatures.

Towards the generation of controlled one-inch impact damage in thick CFRP composites for SHM and NDE validation

In this paper, an attempt has been made to conduct controlled low velocity impact experiments in quasi-isotropic carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites of increasing thicknesses to generate barely visible impact damage (BVID) that creates 1″ impact damage diameter. Such impacted CFRP coupons with controlled damage diameter would serve in the future for validation of structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) damage detection methodologies. Various 2-mm, 4-mm and 6-mm thick quasi-isotropic CFRP composite plates having similar stacking sequence were manufactured in a compression molding machine. These plates were cut into numerous 6″ × 4″ coupons to be impacted in accordance with ASTM D7136 standard on a Dynatup impact testing machine. The goal of the experiments was to identify the combination of impactor mass, energy and momentum at which approximately 1″ impact damage diameter could be produced for test coupons of increasing thicknesses. Interesting observations were made with respect to the size and shape of the impact damage as the thickness of the composite coupons was increased from 2-mm to 6-mm. Modified experiments were also conducted on 6-mm coupons to achieve close to 1″ impact damage diameter. The greatest challenge in conducting these experiments was in the thick 4-mm and 6-mm coupons which did not display a predictable trend. Future work should focus on overcoming this challenge towards achieving a predictable impact damage size methodology.

Characterization of multilayer delaminations in composites using wavenumber analysis: numerical and experimental studies

Delamination is one of the most common and dangerous failure modes for composites because it takes place and grows in the absence of any visible surface damage. The successful implementation of delamination detection in aerospace composite structures is always challenging due to the general anisotropic behavior of composites and multilayer delamination scenarios. This article presents a numerical and experimental investigation to detect and characterize the multilayer delaminations in carbon fiber–reinforced polymer composite plates using guided waves and wavenumber analysis. Multiphysics three-dimensional finite element simulations of the composite plate with five different delamination scenarios are conducted to provide the out-of-plane wave motion for wavenumber analysis. The out-of-plane results from finite element simulations of one delamination and two delaminations are validated by the scanning laser Doppler vibrometer measurements. It is found that the wavenumber analysis can identify the plies between which the delamination occurs and evaluate the delamination severity by comparing the new wavenumbers due to the trapped waves in the delamination regions, which is potentially related to delamination severity. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate a good capability for the detection and characterization of multilayer delaminations in composite structures.

Application of artificial neural networks for quantitative damage detection in unidirectional composite structures based on Lamb waves

This article provides a quantitative nondestructive damage detection method through a Lamb wave technique assisted by an artificial neural network model for fiber-reinforced composite structures. For simulating damages with a variety of sizes, rectangular Teflon tapes with different lengths and widths are applied on a unidirectional carbon fiber–reinforced polymer composite plate. Two characteristic parameters, amplitude damage index and phase damage index, are defined to evaluate effects by the shape of the rectangular damage in the carbon fiber–reinforced polymer composite plate. The relationships between the amplitude damage index and phase damage index parameters and the damage sizes in the carbon fiber–reinforced polymer composite plate are quantitatively addressed using a three-layer artificial neural network model. It can be seen that a reasonable agreement is achieved between the pre-assigned damage lengths and widths and the corresponding predictions provided by the artificial neural network model. This shows the great potential of using the proposed artificial neural network model for quantitatively detecting the damage size in fiber-reinforced composite structures.

Multimode Guided Wave Detection for Various Composite Damage Types

This paper presents a new methodology for detecting various types of composite damage, such as delamination and impact damage, through the application of multimode guided waves. The basic idea is that various wave modes have different interactions with various types of composite damage. Using this method, selective excitations of pure-mode guided waves were achieved using adjustable angle beam transducers (ABTs). The tuning angles of various wave modes were calculated using Snell’s law applied to the theoretical dispersion curves of composite plates. Pitch–catch experiments were conducted on a 2-mm quasi-isotropic carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite plate to validate the excitations of pure fundamental symmetric mode (S0) and shear horizontal mode (SH0). The generated pure S0 mode and SH0 mode were used to detect and separate the simulated delamination and actual impact damage. It was observed that S0 mode was only sensitive to the impact damage, while SH0 mode was sensitive to both simulated delamination and impact damage. The use of pure S0 and SH0 modes allowed for damage separation. In addition, the proposed method was applied to a 3-mm-thick quasi-isotropic CFRP composite plate using multimode guided wave detection to distinguish between delamination and impact damage. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method has a good capability to detect and separate various damage types in composite structures.

Vibration Characteristics of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites under Varying Fiber Orientation Composition

Many engineering applications today are increasingly made of laminated composite plates. The properties of laminated composite plates can change as the laminate and fiber composition change, enabling the engineering structure and components to be customized according to the desired static or dynamic properties. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate variation in dynamic properties of composites under different fiber orientation composition to forecast their vibration response. In this study, the natural frequency and mode shape of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite plates were obtained numerically under varying composition of the 0°, ±45° and 90° fiber orientations. Sixteen different cases were simulated using finite element method, showing changes in the natural frequency and mode shape of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite plates with changes in the composition of the fiber orientation. The first five values of natural frequency and mode shape of the composite laminate were reported and analyzed using a surface regression method. In addition, the effect of the stacking sequence on the natural frequency of the composite plate having the same orientation composition was also analyzed. Comparison with previous studies showed good agreement of the present numerical modeling. Numerical results indicate potential to develop relationships to estimate modal properties based on composition of fiber orientation.

Propagating, Evanescent, and Complex Wavenumber Guided Waves in High-Performance Composites.

The study of propagating, evanescent and complex wavenumbers of guided waves (GWs) in high-performance composites using a stable and robust semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) method is presented. To facilitate understanding of the wavenumber trajectories, an incremental material change study is performed moving gradually from isotropic aluminum alloy to carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. The SAFE results for an isotropic aluminum alloy plate are compared with the exact analytical solutions, which shows that N = 20 SAFE elements across the thickness provides <0.5% error in the highest evanescent wavenumber for the given frequency-wavenumber range. The material change study reveals that reducing the transverse and shear moduli moves the wavenumber solution towards one similar to composite material. The comparison of the propagating, evanescent and complex wavenumber trajectories between composites and aluminum alloy show that antisymmetric imaginary Lamb wave modes always exist in composites although they may not exist in isotropic aluminum alloy at some frequencies. The wavenumber trajectories for a unidirectional CFRP plate show that the range of real wavenumber is much smaller than in the isotropic aluminum alloy. For laminated CFRP composite plates (e.g., unidirectional, off-axis, transverse, cross-ply and quasi-isotropic laminates), the quasi Lamb wave and shear horizontal (SH) wave trajectories are also identified and discussed. The imaginary SH wave trajectories in laminated composites are distorted due to the presence of ±45 plies. The convergence study of the SAFE method in various CFRP laminates indicates that sufficient accuracy can always be achieved by increasing the number of SAFE elements. Future work will address the stress-continuity between composite layers.

Design and testing of an adhesively bonded CFRP strengthening system for steel structures

In the framework of sustainable development policies, it is essential that infrastructure owners can rely on effective repair or strengthening solutions, designed and tested in relevance to actual service conditions. In the case of steel structures, fatigue damage is a major concern that can significantly affect the lifespan of the structure, and so far, there are very few operational methods capable of preventing fatigue cracks in the field. Adhesively bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are being successfully applied to the rehabilitation of concrete structures for more than two decades, and they are currently receiving much interest for the strengthening of steel elements, but mainly for curative purpose after severe damage has occurred.In the present study, which is part of a European project called FASSTbridge, a specific CFRP system has been developed as a preventive method against fatigue damage of steel structures. The proposed system consists of a commercially available ultra-high modulus (UHM) CFRP composite plate compatible with the stiffness of the host steel structures, which is bonded to the steel support using a novel hybrid epoxy/polyurethane adhesive. A first part of the paper presents the main specifications that should be adopted in the design of CFRP strengthening systems applied to steel structures, and that were identified from an extensive literature survey. These specifications have guided the development of the polymer adhesive and the choice of a peculiar commercial CFRP plate in the preliminary phase of the project. Experimental characterizations were then conducted (i) on the formulated hybrid polymer adhesive to optimize its curing schedule and check the previous specifications are fulfilled, and (ii) on CFRP reinforced steel specimens in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strengthening system. This experimental program involved both short term and durability tests that were performed by different laboratories. Such an inter-laboratory study made it possible to verify the performances of the developed strengthening system and to assess the influence of installation parameters and environmental conditions.

Fabrication of Fiber Reinforced Plastics by Ultrasonic Welding

Ultrasonic fabrication of fiber reinforced plastics made from thermoplastic polymer films and carbon or glass fibers enables cycle times of a few seconds and requires investment costs of only some 10,000 €. Besides this, the raw materials can be stored at room temperature. A fiber content of 33 vol % and a tensile strength of approximately 1.2 GPa have been achieved by ultrasonic welding of nine layers of foils from polyamide, each 100 µm in thickness, and eight layers of carbon fibers, each 100 µm in thickness, in between. Besides unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite (CFRP) samples, multi-directional CFRP plates, 116 mm, 64 mm and 1.2 mm in length, width and thickness respectively, were fabricated by processing three layers of carbon fiber canvas, each 300 µm in thickness, and eight layers of polyamide foils, each 100 µm in thickness. Furthermore, both the discontinuous and the continuous ultrasonic fabrication processes are described and the results are presented in this paper. Large-scale production still needs to be demonstrated.

On the dynamic behavior of composite panels under turbulent boundary layer excitations

In this work high Mach number aerodynamic and structural measurements acquired in the CIRA (Italian Aerospace Research Center) transonic wind tunnel and the models used to analyze the response of composite panels to turbulent boundary layer excitation are presented. The two investigated panels are CFRP (Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer) composite plates and their lay-up is similar to configurations used in aeronautical structures. They differ only for the presence of an embedded viscoelastic layer. The experimental set-up has been designed to reproduce a pressure fluctuations field beneath a turbulent boundary layer as close as possible to those in flight. A tripping system, specifically conceived to this aim for this facility, has been used to generate thick turbulent boundary layers at Mach number values ranging between 0.4 and 0.8. It is shown that the designed setup provides a realistic representation of full scale size pressure spectra in the frequency range of interest for the noise component inside the fuselage, generated by turbulent boundary layer. The significant role of the viscoelastic layer at reducing panel׳s response is detailed and discussed. Finally, it is demonstrated that at high Mach number the aeroelastic effect cannot be neglected when analyzing the panel response, especially when composite materials are considered.

Analytical and numerical solution of the interfacial stress in reinforced-concrete beams reinforced with bonded prestressed composite plate

The objective of this present research is to propose a simplified analytical and numerical approach to predict the interfacial stress of simply supported reinforced-concrete beams reinforced with prestressed carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite plate. Analytical design methodology is based on equilibrium and deformations compatibility requirements in and all parts of the strengthened beam, i.e. the concrete beam, the prestressed carbon fiber-reinforced polymer plate, and the adhesive layer. The results show that there exists a high concentration of both shear and normal stress at the ends of the laminate, which might result in premature failure of the strengthening scheme at these locations. In numerical analysis, the mesh sensitivity test shows that the finite element results for interfacial stresses are not sensitive to the finite element mesh. The finite element analysis then is used to calculate the interfacial stress distribution and evaluate the effect of the structural parameters on the interfacial behavior. Numerical results from the present analysis are presented both to demonstrate the advantages of the present solution. This research is helpful for the understanding on mechanical behavior of the interface and design of the interfacial stress in reinforced-concrete beams reinforced with bonded prestressed carbon fiber-reinforced polymer plate.

On the role of CFRP reinforcement for wood beams stiffness

In recent years, carbon fiber composites have been increasingly used in different ways in reinforcing structural elements. Specifically, the use of composite materials as a reinforcement for wood beams under bending loads requires paying attention to several aspects of the problem such as the number of the composite layers applied on the wood beams. Study consolidation of composites revealed that they are made by bonding fibrous material impregnated with resin on the surface of various elements, to restore or increase the load carrying capacity (bending, cutting, compression or torque) without significant damage of their rigidity. Fibers used in building applications can be fiberglass, aramid or carbon. Items that can be strengthened are concrete, brick, wood, steel and stone, and in terms of structural beams, walls, columns and floors. This paper describes an experimental study which was designed to evaluate the effect of composite material on the stiffness of the wood beams. It proposes a summary of the fundamental principles of analysis of composite materials and the design and use. The type of reinforcement used on the beams is the carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheet and plates and also an epoxy resin for bonding all the elements. Structural epoxy resins remain the primary choice of adhesive to form the bond to fiber-reinforced plastics and are the generally accepted adhesives in bonded CFRP-wood connections. The advantages of using epoxy resin in comparison to common wood-laminating adhesives are their gap-filling qualities and the low clamping pressures that are required to form the bond between carbon fiber plates or sheets and the wood beams. Mechanical tests performed on the reinforced wood beams showed that CFRP materials may produce flexural displacement and lifting increases of the beams. Observations of the experimental load-displacement relationships showed that bending strength increased for wood beams reinforced with CFRP composite plates and sheets compared to those without CFRP reinforcement. The main conclusion of the tests is that the tensioning forces allow beam taking a maximum load for a while, something that is particularly useful when we consider a real construction, so in case of excess lift beam, we have time to take strengthening measures and when is about a catastrophic request (earthquake) the construction remain partially functional. The experiments have shown that the method of increasing resistance of wood constructions with composite materials is good for it. The solution is easy to implement and has low costs.