Purpose
To investigate and characterize material damage from low-speed impacts. Equipment is often used on test articles during mechanical testing to track/characterize damage progression(e.g. interplay delamination)
Equipment/Test Method
X-ray Computer Tomography (CT)
– Provides 3-D information on sub-surface damage (e.g., cracks, delamination) |
 Ultrasonic Transmission (UT)
– Used to characterize impact-induced delamination in composite materials |
Typical/Recent Experiments
- Impact tests done on composite panels
– Damage characterized by UT/X-ray CT
– Compression testing done to determine mechanical performance reduction
- X-ray CT characterization of metallic- and polymer-matrix composites
– Provides 3-D information on internal configuration
– Information used to create a specimen-specific finite-element model
- UT scans conducted during mechanical testing of composites to track propagation of delamination
