Scattering of guided waves at delaminations in composite plates

Carbon fiber laminate composites are increasingly employed for aerospace structures as they offer advantages, such as a good strength to weight ratio. However, impact during the operation and servicing of the aircraft can lead to barely visible and difficult to detect damage. Depending on the severity of the impact, fiber and matrix breakage or delaminations can occur, reducing the load carrying capacity of the structure. Efficient nondestructive testing and structural health monitoring of composite panels can be achieved using guided ultrasonic waves propagating along the structure. The scattering of the A0 Lamb wave mode at delaminations was investigated using a full three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis. The influence of the delamination geometry (size and depth) was systematically evaluated. In addition to the depth dependency, a significant influence of the delamination width due to sideways reflection of the guided waves within the delamination area was found. Mixed-mode defects were simulated using a combined model of delamination with localized material degradation. The guided wave scattering at cross-ply composite plates with impact damage was measured experimentally using a non-contact laser interferometer. Good agreement between experiments and FE predictions using the mixed-mode model for an approximation of the impact damage was found.