Impact damage assessment in laminated composites using acoustic emission and finite element methods

This study aims to quantify impact damage in laminated composites using acoustic emission (AE) and to verify the AE results with finite element (FE) method. Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite specimens were subjected to quasi-static out-of-plane indentation loading. A procedure, including feature extraction, feature selection, data dimensionality reduction, and data clustering using an evolutionary algorithm, that is, differential evolution (DE) optimization algorithm, was proposed to identify and quantify different damage mechanisms using AE. The AE results showed that the dominant damages were matrix cracking and delamination. For the quantitative evaluation of the AE results, the indentation test was simulated using the FE method. A FE model based on cohesive zone modeling and continuum damage mechanics was implemented to predict interlaminar and intralaminar damages. The quantity of the damaged elements associated with the matrix cracking and delamination was consistent with the AE results. This study showed the applicability of the AE for impact damage identification and quantification in composite structures.HighlightsIndentation damage in CFRP is experimentally quantified using the AE method.The DE algorithm is used to cluster the AE data.CZM and CDM are used to numerically model the damage.The AE clustering results are compared with the numerical results. Impact damage quantification using AE and FEM.image

Automated summary

This study quantifies impact damage in laminated composites using acoustic emission and verifies the results using finite element method. The results show that the acoustic emission method is applicable for identification and quantification of impact damage in composite structures.