Publications Details

Health monitoring studies on composite structures for aerospace applications

James, G.; Roach, D.; Hansche, B.; Meza, R.; Robinson, N.

This paper discusses ongoing work to develop structural health monitoring techniques for composite aerospace structures such as aircraft control surfaces, fuselage sections or repairs, and reusable launch vehicle fuel tanks. The overall project is divided into four tasks: operational evaluation, diagnostic measurements, information condensation, and damage detection. Five composite plates were constructed to study delaminations, disbonds, and fluid retention issues as the initial step in creating an operational system. These two foot by two foot plates were graphite-epoxy with nomex honeycomb cores. The diagnostic measurements are composed of modal tests with a scanning laser vibrometer at over 500 scan points per plate covering the frequency range up to 2000 Hz. This data has been reduced into experimental dynamic-response matrices using a generic software package developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The continuing effort will entail performing a series of damage identification studies to detect, localize, and determine the extent of the damage. This work is providing understanding and algorithm development for a global NDE technique for composite aerospace structures.