DAMAGE DETECTION AND CHARACTERISATION IN FIBRE REINFORCED PLASTICS USING IR EMISSIONS

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy)
Not Energy Related

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Prof J Barton
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton

Standard

EPSRC

01 January 2000

31 December 2000

12 months

£58,988

Materials sciences

South East

Polymers -- Physical Sciences

Prof J Barton, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton

Dr AG Dutton, Engineering and Instrumentation, STFC (Science & Technology Facilities Council)
Professor RA Shenoi, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton

Project Contact, Stress Photonics Inc., USA
Project Contact, Wolfson Unit for Marine Technology & Ind
Project Contact, Ministry of Defence
Project Contact, Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands

The purpose of this project is to develop a technique for identifying and quantifying damage in fibre composite structures using infra-red measurements. The technique will make use of conventional IRT and TSA. The IRT will enable the measurement of the cumulative temperature variation and TSA will be used to monitor the localised stress variations that occur as a result of damage accumulation. Intensive measurements will be made at various stages of the material s fatigue lifetime to measurethe material properties at appropriate damage states. Key factors to be investigated will include the point at which the assumption of reversible temperature change within the TSA analysis begins to break down and the extent to which material damping changes with the onset of damage. The combination of the two techniques will provide a much-improved understanding of the behaviour of composite materials under fatigue loads. A major part of the proposal is to model the material behaviour usingfinite element techniques and in particular any thermoviscoelastic processes, and then to use the model as a predictive tool. The ultimate goal is to develop a damage parameter based on TSA/IRT readings and incorporate this into the Deltatherm software. The approach will then be validated on a large FRP structure.

01/06/07