Analysis of Nonlinear Vibro-Acoustic Wave Modulations Used for Impact Damage Detection in Composite Structures

L. PIECZONKA1, W. J. STASZEWSKI1, F. AYMERICH2 and T. UHL1

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ABSTRACT

Composite materials have been widely used in many advanced engineering structures. High specific strength, light weight, resistance to fatigue/corrosion and flexibility in design displayed by these materials have benefited many industries especially in the transportation area. Despite of all these benefits the susceptibility of composite materials to incur impact damage is well known and creates a major concern related to integrity of many structures.

Many techniques have been developed for impact damage detection in composite structures over the last few decades. Recent years have shown interest in nonlinear vibration and acoustic phenomena for damage detection. Various symptoms related to nonlinear effects have been investigated. This includes time–domain signal distortions, generation of higher harmonics, frequency shifts and signal modulations. The latter utilize the combined vibro-acoustic interaction of high-frequency ultrasonic wave and low-frequency vibration excitation. Despite many research efforts, there is still very little understanding of what physical mechanisms related to these nonlinearities are.

The paper presents some preliminary results with respect to investigates related to the effect of low-frequency vibration on nonlinear vibro-acoustic wave modulations. Finite Element (FE) modeling was used to analyze vibration of the delaminated composite plate. The simulated data was subsequently analyzed to identify vibration shapes for two distinct scenarios of delamination behavior, namely the case where its motion is dominated by: (1) the opening and closing action and (2) by the frictional sliding. This pretest analysis is an essential step for the experimental testing where the identified frequencies will be used for low-frequency excitation in nonlinear acoustic tests. _____________

Lukasz Pieczonka, Wieslaw J. Staszewski, Tadeusz Uhl - AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, Department of Robotics and Mechatronics, Al. A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland. Francesco Aymerich - University of Cagliari, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Piazza d’Armi, 09123 Cagliari, Italy.

6th European Workshop onStructural Health Monitoring - Th.2.A.2

Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0

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INTRODUCTION

Recent years have shown interest in nonlinear vibration and acoustic phenomena in many research areas including damage detection [1-4]. However despite many research efforts, there is still very little understanding of what physical mechanisms related to these nonlinearities are. Recent studies in this area point to nonlinear dissipative mechanisms via nonlinear hysteresis [5-6] and/or non-classical phenomena such as for example the Luxembourg-Gorki effect [7-8]. Previous experimental work demonstrates that nonlinear phenomena are generally more sensitive to small damage severities than classical linear approaches [1-8].

Barely Visible Impact Damage (BVID) is of particular concern in aerospace industries [9]. Reliable methods are needed to detect and monitor BVID evolution. A number of different methods have been developed for damage detection in composite structures for the last forty years [9-11]. These include: visual inspection, passive and active approaches based on ultrasonic signals, liquid penetrant testing, eddy current based methods, radiographic methods and thermographic methods. The vibro-acoustic approaches based on nonlinear phenomena are especially well suited for Structural Health Monitoring applications as they are very sensitive to even small damage severities and they do not require dense sensor networks.

NONLINEAR VIBRO-ACOUSTIC WAVE MODULATIONS

The method considered in this study is based on a combined vibro-acoustic modulation of an intensive low-frequency (modal) vibration and weaker high-frequency ultrasonic wave. These two excitations are introduced to the structure simultaneously (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The principle of vibro–acoustic modulation.

When the investigated structure is undamaged the spectrum of the measured

vibration response signal exhibits only the major frequency components: the propagating acoustical wave and low frequency excitation (Figure 2a). When the investigated structure is damaged the spectrum of the response signal reveals additional components – higher harmonics and the sidebands around the high frequency component (Figure 2b). The physical causes of this modulation remain however poorly understood. The most widely accepted explanation of the modulation is the contact acoustic nonlinearity (CAN) that is due to the opening-closing action of a planar defect under low frequency excitation [12-13]. Other studies reveal however that energy dissipation on the defect – not opening–closing crack action – is the major

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mechanism behind nonlinear modulations [3,8]. It has been shown that vibro-acoustic modulation can be also used to detect damage in composite structures [14-15].

Figure 2. Frequency spectra of the measured vibration signal for an undamaged specimen (a) and for a damaged specimen (b).

This study aims at identifying different delamination motion scenarios that will be

subsequently used in future experimental tests. These scenarios include the opening-closing action of the defect and frictional sliding of the defect interfaces. Signal modulation in nonlinear acoustic test for the former case should be mainly due to the contact acoustic nonlinearity, while in the latter case due to the energy dissipation on the defect. Experimental tests for these two scenarios will be performed to verify these assumptions.

DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST SAMPLE

A rectangular composite plate with [03/903]s ply stacking sequence has been used as a test case. The dimensions of the plate were 1503002 mm. The plate was cut from a laminate made up from Seal Texipreg® HS160/REM carbon/epoxy prepreg. The specimen was ultrasonically C-scanned prior to testing to assess the quality of the laminate and to exclude the presence of manufacturing defects. The in-plane stiffness properties of the unidirectional prepreg layers (as obtained by tests on 0° and [+45/-45]2s coupons) are given in Table 1.

Ex = 93.7 GPa Ey = 7.45 GPa Gxy = 3.97 GPa νxy =0.261

Table 1. Mechanical properties of the composite material.

Damage was introduced in the composite plate using a drop-weight impact testing

tower. The panel was simply supported by a steel plate having a rectangular opening 45 mm × 67.5 mm in size (with the longer side along the 0° direction) and impacted at the centre of the opening. The impactor of the drop-weight machine had a mass of 2.3 kg and was equipped with a hemispherical indenter of 12.5 mm in diameter. The 3.9 J impact energy was obtained by varying the drop height of the impactor. The absorbed

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energy was evaluated by measuring the velocities of the impactor immediately before and after the impact; the contact force was measured by means of a semiconductor strain-gage bridge bonded to the indenter. Ultrasonic C-scan was used to characterize nature and extent of the internal damage. The calculated area of damage was 326 mm2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS

Numerical model of the plate was prepared in MSC.Patran [16] FE preprocessor. The model comprised approximately 1 million nodes and 800 thousand hexahedral solid elements. There were four elements across the thickness of the plate - one solid element for every three plies with the same orientation in order to properly reproduce the desired stacking sequence. Average mesh size for the composite plate was 1 mm. Delamination was modeled as double nodes at the interface between the 90° and the 0° plies farthest from the impact side (Figure 3).

Simulations have been performed using normal modes solution (SOL103) in a commercial MSC.Nastran FE solver [17].

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the numerical model used for simulations.

RESULTS AND SUMMARY

There were 14 natural frequencies in the range from 0 to 1000 Hz identified from the numerical solution as listed in Table 2.

Based on the vibration shapes obtained from the analysis the delamination divergence study has been performed. The indices of relative motion were computed as a mean value of relative displacement between all the nodes on top and bottom delamination faces. For out of plane motion only the z coordinate (normal to the plate) has been considered. For the in plane motion both x and y coordinates have been considered. The results are presented in Figure 4.

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Mode number

Frequency [Hz]

Mode number

Frequency [Hz]

1 74,1 8 501,6 2 163,5 9 707,7 3 221,8 10 838,2 4 304,8 11 866,4 5 338,5 12 880,9 6 450,4 13 924,6 7 459,7 14 966,9

Table 2. Identified natural frequencies of the damaged plate.

Figure 4. Contribution of two distinct delamination behavior scenarios for the first 14 vibration shapes - the opening and closing action(top) and the frictional sliding (bottom).

a) b) Mode 7 – 459.7 [Hz]

Mode 12 – 880.9 [Hz]

Mode 6 – 450.4 [Hz]

Mode 9 – 707.7 [Hz]

Figure 5. Identified mode shapes resulting in the opening and closing action (column a) and for the frictional sliding (column b).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 140

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

Delamination divergence analysis - out of plane motion

Mode number

Rel

ativ

e m

otio

n [a

.u]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 140

0.1

0.2

0.3

Delamination divergence analysis - in plane motion

Mode number

Rel

ativ

e m

otio

n [a

.u]

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The results show that in the considered frequency range there are modes where the opening-closing action of the delamination dominates and there are modes where in plane motion dominates. Examples of the dominant modes that could be selected for experimental nonlinear acoustic testing are presented in Figure 5. For the opening-closing action these are modes 7 and 12 and for the in-plane motion action these are modes 6 and 9.

CONCLUSIONS Numerical simulations have been performed to investigate possible modal

excitation frequencies for future nonlinear vibro-acoustic wave modulation test used to detect impact damage composites.

Two different delamination motion scenarios have been identified. These are: the opening-closing action of the delamination which should result in wave modulation due to contact acoustic nonlinearity and (2) frictional sliding of the defect interfaces which should cause wave modulations due to dissipative mechanisms. Experimental campaign is underway to verify that the excitation assumptions for nonlinear vibro-acoustic wave modulations are correct.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work presented in this paper was supported by funding from the Foundation for Polish Science under the research WELCOME project no. Project no. 2010-3/2.

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