0000000000933041
AUTHOR
Ranting Cui
Guided Wave Techniques for Damage Detection in Composite Aerospace Structures
Composite materials make up an increasing portion of today’s aerospace structures (see, e.g. Boeing 787 and Airbus 380). These aircrafts’ fuselage, for example, is composed of a laminated composite skin connected to composite stringers and C-frames. Of primary importance is the detection of damage in these built-up structures, whether caused by the manufacturing process or in service (e.g. impacts). A related issue is the characterization of the composite (visco)elastic mechanical properties, that can also be related to the quantification of potential damage. Guided elastic waves propagating in the ~100s kHz regime lend themselves to provide the necessary sensitivity to these two conditions…
Improved global-local model to predict guided-wave scattering patterns from discontinuities in complex parts
Ultrasonic guided-wave testing can greatly benefit from (1) an ability to provide quantitative information on the damage that is being detected, and (2) an ability to select the best mode-frequency combination for maximum sensitivity to a given type of damage. Achieving these capabilities in complex structures (e.g. nonprismatic structures such as a stiffened panel in aerospace fuselages) is a nontrivial task. This paper will discuss an improved Global-Local (GL) method where the geometrical “local” discontinuity (e.g. the stiffener) is modelled by traditional FE discretization and the rest of the structure (“global” part) is modelled by Semi-Analytical Finite Element (SAFE) cross-sectional…