Investigation of Bending Fatigue of Composite Plates by Using Infrared Thermography

Abstract

In this study, the temperature rise of composite plates with a hole during fatigue loading was investigated. Woven glass/epoxy composite plates with eight plies were subjected to bending fatigue loading and materials were observed by using a thermal camera during the test. Previous works showed that a heat generation can form due to internal friction and damage formation. Therefore, a thermographic infrared imaging system was used to detect the temperature rise of composite specimens. During the tests, the thermal images of the specimens have been recorded by a thermal camera and then transferred to the image processing program which has been developed by using MATLAB. By using these thermal images, the spot temperatures of the specimen were obtained by using artificial neural networks. The obtained temperatures show local increase at places where the heat generation localized. These regions considered being the probable damage initiation sites. It is shown in this study that most probable damage initiation zones in the woven glass/epoxy composite material can be detected by using infrared thermography (IRT) approach prior to failure.