In this paper, the Acoustic emission (AE) technique is applied to clarify the damage mechanisms of 3-D carbon/epoxy braided composites with different braiding angles under the compressive loading. The AE responses for the three kinds of specimens are significantly different due to the different damage mechanisms. The results reveal that the curves of cumulative AE counts can be used to analyze the damage processes of 3-D braided composites more exactly than that of only using the load-time curves. Through analyzing both the cumulative AE counts and the load-time curves at the same time, the damage processes can be divided into different stages and be described in detail. The present paper reveals that the AE technique is a viable and effective tool for analyzing the fracture process and damage mechanisms in the 3-D braided composite materials under the compressive testing.

Date Published: 1 November 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6423, International Conference on Smart Materials and Nanotechnology in Engineering, 642342 (1 November 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.779651

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6423:
International Conference on Smart Materials and Nanotechnology in Engineering
Shanyi Du; Jinsong Leng; Anand K. Asundi, Editor(s)