Damage Detection in Composite Beam Using the Temperature Distribution

Marine, aerospace, ground and civil structures can receive unexpected loading that may compromise integrity during their life span. Therefore, improvement in detecting damage can save revenue and lives depending upon the application. The prognostic capability is usually a function of the examiner's experience, background and data collection during the evaluation. Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods are varied and specific to a given type of system (material, damage type, loading and environmental scenarios). As a result, one method of damage detection alone cannot examine all possible conditions and may even give false readings. This work examined the transient thermal response technique to assess damage in a sandwich composite structure. The mathematical formulation of the problem is presented. Then, a numerical approximation technique is used to solve the governing equations. The thermal distribution on the surface of a beam model is analyzed when damage is introduced. Then, an experimental setup with an Infrared (IR) thermography camera was assembled in order to provide the necessary information about the surface temperature distribution over the beam. Several damages scenarios will be tested by the technique with the purpose of determining the limitations of the method. The obtained experimental data was used to validate the numerical model. Finally, the feasibility of this feature to use in damage detection is discussed.