Abstract
Carbon fibre reinforced plastic composites used in spacecraft structures are susceptible to delamination, debonds and fibre cracking that may arise during manufacturing, assembly or in-service operations (e.g. caused by debris impacts in near-Earth orbital spaceflights). Therefore, in situ and real-time health monitoring is necessary to avoid time-consuming and unsafe visual inspections performed either on-ground or during extra vehicular activities. In this article, a recently created ‘smart’ carbon fibre reinforced plastic composite structure with embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers was used to detect multiple areas of artificial delamination and real impact damage of different size using nonlinear ultrasound. The electrical insulation of embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers was achieved by interlacing a dry layer of woven glass fibre fabric between the sensor and the carbon fibre reinforced plastic plies before curing. Damage detection was successfully demonstrated using both second harmonic generation and nonlinear modulation (sidebands) of the measured ultrasonic spectrum. The material nonlinear response at the second harmonic and sidebands frequencies was also measured with a laser Doppler vibrometer to validate the nonlinear ultrasonic tests and provide damage localisation. Experimental results revealed that the proposed configuration of embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers can be utilised for on-board ultrasonic inspection of spacecraft composite parts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2995-3007 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| Early online date | 11 Sept 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2019 |
Funding
Andreades Christos 1 Malfense Fierro Gian Piero 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1633-8930 Meo Michele 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3846-8891 Ciampa Francesco 2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, UK 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Francesco Ciampa, Department of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK. Email: [email protected] 9 2019 1045389X19873419 © The Author(s) 2019 2019 SAGE Publications Carbon fibre reinforced plastic composites used in spacecraft structures are susceptible to delamination, debonds and fibre cracking that may arise during manufacturing, assembly or in-service operations (e.g. caused by debris impacts in near-Earth orbital spaceflights). Therefore, in situ and real-time health monitoring is necessary to avoid time-consuming and unsafe visual inspections performed either on-ground or during extra vehicular activities. In this article, a recently created ‘smart’ carbon fibre reinforced plastic composite structure with embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers was used to detect multiple areas of artificial delamination and real impact damage of different size using nonlinear ultrasound. The electrical insulation of embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers was achieved by interlacing a dry layer of woven glass fibre fabric between the sensor and the carbon fibre reinforced plastic plies before curing. Damage detection was successfully demonstrated using both second harmonic generation and nonlinear modulation (sidebands) of the measured ultrasonic spectrum. The material nonlinear response at the second harmonic and sidebands frequencies was also measured with a laser Doppler vibrometer to validate the nonlinear ultrasonic tests and provide damage localisation. Experimental results revealed that the proposed configuration of embedded piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducers can be utilised for on-board ultrasonic inspection of spacecraft composite parts. space debris damage detection nonlinear ultrasound composite materials edited-state corrected-proof Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Francesco Ciampa acknowledges the Royal Society-Newton Mobility Grant (IECNSFC170387) project and Michele Meo acknowledges the Horizon 2020 ‘EXTREME’ project to support this research work. ORCID iDs Michele Meo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1633-8930 Francesco Ciampa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3846-8891
Keywords
- composite materials
- damage detection
- nonlinear ultrasound
- space debris
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science
- Mechanical Engineering