Detecting damage in non-uniform beams using the dereverberated transfer function response

Delamination damage in composite rotorcraft flexbeams caused by excessive vibratory and fatigue loads can lead to degradation in flapwise and lagwise performance of the rotor blade. In addition, delaminations can result in rapid fatigue failure of these tailored composite elements leading to catastrophic results. A novel damage detection strategy is evaluated in this work which attempts to exploit the dereverberated transfer function response of beams with tapered geometries. This approach avoids high fidelity finite element models of damaged one-dimensional beams with non-uniform geometries. To obtain the dereverberated transfer function response, a virtual control force is applied to the reverberated transfer function response to remove resonant and anti-resonant dynamics associated with the beam's boundary conditions. Magnitude and phase characteristics between each actuator and sensor can then be used to infer changing structural properties. Analytical and experimental results suggest that this approach can be used to quantitatively and qualitatively infer delamination damage in non-uniform beams. Experimental results are displayed for beams with varying thickness and width tapers.