Coupled electrical resistance measurement and IR thermography monitoring for analysis of damage development and fatigue strength of composite materials

Abstract

Rooted from its heterogeneous microstructure, composite materials possess high strength to weight ratio and, thus, are applied in a wide range of industry. However, their complicated microstructure makes it more difficult to predict the failure mechanism and residual material life. The in-situ health monitoring system has received much attention recently as one of the solutions for the aforementioned limitations of composite material. In this research, electrical resistance measurement and IR thermography will be utilized simultaneously as a single non-destructive testing system that can spot both the time and location of the damage initiation in composite materials. Furthermore, we suggest that this coupled NDT system can be used to evaluate the fatigue strength of composite materials more efficiently than the conventional fatigue testing.