Damage Assessment in Composite Structures based on Acousto Ultrasonics – Evaluation of Performance

Kurzfassung

This work focuses on the damage detection and assessment of barely visible impact damages that occur after impacting a composite stiffened structure through the Acousto Ultrasonics technique. Delaminations and debondings have been introduced in two stiffened panels and afterwards interrogated with an integrated SHM-network within the project. In order to perform the damage assessment, a methodology for the identification of damages along with a graphical user interface is developed. The performance of the developed methodology is evaluated and a damage assessment based on several damage indices and actuation frequencies is carried out. The most suitable parameters for the given structure and damage types are finally reported.