A rapid technique for detecting and localizing damage in composite laminates

Composite materials are prone to impact damage, which affects structural stability and causes safety concerns. Due to the complexity and diversity of them, the damage localization in composite materials is very challenging and is getting more attention in the research community. This paper presents a rapid technique for composite damage localization without any prior knowledge of direction-dependent velocity profile. The proposed solution technique uses the time difference of arrival (TDOA) of Lamb waves. The TDOA is obtained by the cross-correlation technique applied to the received signals at different sensor pairs in two “L” shaped sensor clusters (LSSCs). With the help of the LSSC, only seven sensors are required to quickly predict the delamination damage location for quasi-isotropic and anisotropic composite materials (QACM). A simulation model was established to study the influence of damage location and different layup directions on the localization results. The experimental verification was carried out on a T300 carbon fiber board. The localization results of simulation and experiment showed good matching, which proves that the technique is suitable for QACM.