Damage Detection in a Polymer Matrix Composite from 4D Displacement Field Measurements

Area of Science:

• Materials Science and Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Non-Destructive Testing

Background:

• Standard Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) quantifies specimen deformation by measuring displacement fields between discrete states.
• DVC is limited by the number of scans required, which increases acquisition duration.
• There is a need for methods that can capture deformation over entire loading histories efficiently.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate a Projection-based Digital Volume Correlation (P-DVC) enhanced DVC method.
• To enable 4D (space and time) full-field deformation measurements over entire loading histories.
• To quantify damage growth in materials up to failure using limited projection data.

Main Methods:

• The proposed P-DVC method decomposes the displacement field into temporal and spatial modes.
• Spatial modes are constructed using scan-wise DVC.
• Temporal amplitudes are determined via P-DVC, using only one projection per loading step.
• The method was applied to a glass fiber mat reinforced polymer specimen with a notch under cyclic tension, imaged using X-ray Computed Tomography.

Main Results:

• The P-DVC enhanced DVC method successfully performed 4D full-field measurements over the entire loading history.
• The technique allowed for the quantification of damage evolution throughout the loading process.
• Damage growth was successfully monitored up to the point of material failure.

Conclusions:

• P-DVC offers a significant advancement over standard DVC by overcoming scan duration limitations.
• This enhanced DVC approach enables comprehensive analysis of material deformation and damage.
• The method is effective for studying material behavior under cyclic loading conditions up to failure.