Damage tracking of notched composite plates by thermography—Experimental observations and analytical model for damage onset

Abstract

The thermographic approach is a non-contact/full field technique that can be used to recognize surface damages that generates small sudden heatings. The load monitoring can be used, associated with thermography, to quantify the resistance loss synchronized with surface localized temperature changes. An experimental arrangement was set up to test notched composites specimens subjected to progressive axial load, up to the final failure. The results show that the utilization of the passive thermography, together with the resistance curves, as complementary procedure, can become a helpful tool to evaluate damage tolerance for design of composite applications. Additionally, an analytical model was proposed to estimate damage onset, resulting in good agreements with thermography first heating event.