The application of interferometric techniques to the nondestructive inspection of fiber-reinforced materials

A method for increasing the sensitivity of dynamic materials evaluation (DME) to localized damage in fiber-reinforced composites was examined. To obtain this improved sensitivity, different aspects of DME were examined. These included an increase in the frequency used to evaluate the dynamic properties, utilization of mode-shape information and different procedures for evaluating the experimental data.The extent of the internal damage was determined using measured changes in the dynamic properties of the system (loss factor, dynamic stiffness and mode shape). To obtain the response information at higher frequencies a modalanalysis system was built around the performance characteristics of a laser doppler vibrometer (LDV) and an electronic speckle pattern interferometer (ESPI). These two devices provided complementary information for the determination of the dynamic characteristics of each vibration mode. With this system, damage-induced changes in the dynamic characteristics of composite materials were measured at frequencies up to 10 kHz.The results of this study showed the following. (1) Torsion modes provide the most sensitivity to localized internal damage. (2) The evaluation of higher frequency NDI data requires the ability to correlate the measured loss factor and resonant frequencies with the actual mode shape. (3) The data obtained over the frequency range of the test could be reduced to a series of slopes that provide a sensitive indication of the material condition. (4) The sensitivity of the dynamic method to localized damage is limited by the measurement of the loss factor.