Ultrasonic monitoring of material degradation in FRP composites

This research uses laser ultrasonic techniques to monitor a (directly measurable) ultrasonic property-frequency-dependent Rayleigh wave velocity (material dispersion)-and then relates changes in this acoustic property to changes in the material's properties (such as stiffness) that characterize damage. The subject material system is a thick, glass-reinforced, vinylester (thermosetting) fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite. Laser ultrasonics is an ideal methodology to monitor changes in the Rayleigh phase (or group) velocity of this material because of its high fidelity, broad bandwidth, point source/receiver, and noncontact nature. The experimental procedure consists of measuring a series of transient elastic waveforms in a thick FRP specimen and then operating on these waveforms with the 2D fast Fourier transform to develop the dispersion relationship for that specimen. Material degradation (damage) is introduced into these specimens with environmental aging, and the dispersion curves are used to quantitatively track changes in material properties as a function of degradation.