PSI - Issue 17

Guillermo Azuara et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 17 (2019) 774–779 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

775

2

However, due to the size of the damage caused and, mainly, to the geometric distribution assigned by the algorithm to each point, the presence of the damage is sometimes masked. To avoid this issue, a correction for this algorithm has been proposed.

2. Test set-up

In this study, a thermoplastic matrix sample was tested (Figure 1). Several PZT (DuraAct, from Piceramic) were attached to its surface and several tests were carried out using different frequencies. In Table 1 the material of the sample is detailed.

Figure 1. At left, undamaged thermoplastic specimen with 12 PZT. At right, specimen schematic.

Table 1. Material characteristics

Type of matrix

Matrix polymer / Carbon fiber

Layers Ply thickness (mm)

Stacking sequence

Thermoplastic Tenax-E TPCL PEEK-HTA40/ Tenax -E HTA40 3K

9

0.31

[0/90/+45/- 45/0/90/+45/-45/0]

A small damage was generated to test the algorithm. This damage is a shallow hole of 1 mm depth and 7 mm radius (Figure 2), located at x=120, y=120 (mm) (the origin of coordinates is at transducer number 1).