Composite materials are commonly used in many branches of industry. One method to join or repair CFRP parts is by the use adhesive bonding. There is a search of effective methods for pre-bond assessment of bonded parts and post-bond inspection. Research reported here focuses on post-bond inspection of bonded CFRP plates. In this paper we reported results of two methods. We used noncontact ultrasonic testing (UT) technique as reference method. Ultrasonic testing was made in an immersion tank using phased-array probes. The second method was the electromechanical impedance (EMI). A piezoelectric sensors were surface mounted on each of the samples. Due to piezoelectric effect the electrical response of the sensor is related to mechanical response of the structure to which the sensors is bonded to. Measurements were conducted using HIOKI Impedance Analyzer IM3570. In order to perform a detailed study three samples of each kind were tested. There were three reference samples. The samples with modified adhesive bonds had three levels of severity, so there were three samples with each level of modification. The ultrasonic testing was focused on C-scan analysis taking into consideration the amplitude and time of flight (TOF). Two probes were used, one with 5 MHz frequency, second with 10 MHz. The EMI spectra were gathered up to 5 MHz and they were processed with signal processing algorithms in order to extract differences between reference samples and samples with modified bonds. The UT results provided relevant information about the investigated samples, while the EMI showed sensitivity to the level of adhesive bond modification.

Date Published: 5 April 2017
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 10170, Health Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems 2017, 101700B (5 April 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2259852

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10170:
Health Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems 2017
Tribikram Kundu, Editor(s)