MATERIALS FORUM VOLUME 33 - 2009 Edited by Dr Steve Galea, Associate Professor Wingkong and Professor Akira Mita Institute

e of Materials Engineering Australasia Ltd

VIBRATION-BASED ANALYSIS OF DAMAGE IN COMPOSITES

K. Oruganti 1, M. Mehdizadeh 1, S. John 1, I. Herszberg 2
1

RMIT University, School of Aerospace, Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, Bundoora Campus, Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia 2 Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures (CRC-ACS), 506 Lorimer Street, Fishermans Bend, VIC 3207, Australia Corresponding Author: S John. Email: sabu.john@rmit.edu.au

ABSTRACT
In recent times, composite materials are supplanting conventional metals in aerospace, automotive, civil and marine industries. These material types are however prone to delamination thus necessitating the early detection of the flaw before it initiates into a serious defect. Constant health monitoring of such structures is highly essential to prevent sudden failure. An offline approach was commonly employed where the parts were removed from service. This not only consumed a lot of time but risked damage to the part during operation and handling. Hence, the demand for a robust Real Time Health Monitoring System which not only detects the presence of the damage but also estimates the remaining life of the composition. A detailed understanding of the various proven methods and techniques and their applicability in the analysis of vibration signatures obtained from damaged structures under dynamic conditions is essential to develop a reliable Structural Health Monitoring System (SHMS). This paper highlights the utilisation of Vibration based testing on Carbon/Epoxy composite beams for damage detection. Such composites are commonly used in the aerospace and marine industry. This paper reports the processing of the vibration signatures from healthy and damaged composite beams upon excitation and analysis of the mode shapes acquired. The study comprises of testing carbon/epoxy composite beams with various embedded delaminations with a mechanical actuator and a scanning laser vibrometer (SLV) as a sensor for recording the frequency response and analysing the acquired signatures based on Displacement and Curvature Mode Shapes. The paper also includes Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and C-scan techniques used on the composite beams to validate the results. In recent times, there has been a lot of focus on vibration based damage detection as it has proved to be more reliable and as it can be incorporated into an online health monitoring system for damage identification. Thus, this paper also attempts to summarize the recent trends and progress within this area of SHM.

KEY WORD
Damage Detection, Dynamic response, Displacement mode shape, Curvature Mode shape

1 INTRODUCTION
Composite materials are replacing conventional metals in aerospace, automotive, civil and marine industries in modern times. This is mainly due to their high strength and light weight characteristics. But with all the advantages they have, they are prone to delamination. Thus it is highly essential that the initial crack be detected before it initiates into a serious flaw [1,2,3]. Constant health monitoring of these structures is required to prevent sudden failure. An offline approach was often used where in the parts were removed from service/operation and examined [5]. This consumes a lot of time. Such an approach also risks damage to the parts. Hence a real time health monitoring system is needed to reduce these risks and save time.
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There are a number of methods for the detection and localisation of the damage in a composite material. In general, structural damage detection can be classified as global-damage detection and local-damage detection [10]. Local-damage detection largely refers to techniques referring to non-destructive testing (NDT) such as CT scanning and ultrasonic methods. It is primarily used to detect local damage in structures-damage existence and its location. The main advantage of local damage detection techniques are data and theoretical models of the undamaged structure are not needed. However, for large and more complex structures, it is very difficult to detect damage using any of the local damage detection techniques. Thus, local damage detection techniques can only be used to detect damages in certain parts of the


structure. For detecting damage throughout the whole structure, especially some large and complex structures, a methodology called global vibrationbased structural damage detection [2,3] has been proposed. In brief, it is based on the principle where the structure is assumed as a dynamic system with mass, stiffness, and damping. Upon damage within the structure, there would be a change in the structural parameters along with the frequencyresponse function (FRF) and modal parameters of the structural system. Hence, the change of the structural modal parameters can be treated as a signal of early damage occurrence within the structural system [9]. Vibration-based structural damage detection is a relatively new and emerging area of research within SHM and its development can be divided into traditional and modern type. The traditionaltypes of damage detection methods utilises mechanical characteristics of structures, such as natural frequencies, modal damping, modal shapes, etc. However, this kind of method generally requires experimental modal analysis or transfer function measure, and is not very convenient for online detection of structures. The so called traditional-type damage detection techniques have three main disadvantages: (1) More experimental dependence is time-consuming and proves expensive (2) Using traditional-type method for damage detection, it is very difficult to establish a universal methodology for various structures as the properties shall vary according to size, shape construction etc. (3) The traditionaltype methods generally are not very sensitive to initial tiny damage within the structures. The modern-type such as techniques incorporating vibration signatures for analysis refer to the damage detection methods based on response signals acquired from excitation of structures. Its advantages can be summarised as: (1) Compared to the traditional type techniques, it is less dependant on experiments. Vibration responses at few points on the structure are sufficient for damage detection. (2) Using the more modern-type techniques, smaller structural damage can be detected by the construction and extraction of better characteristic information from structural dynamic response signals. Among the modern-type methods for structural damage detection, the representative ones include Wavelet analysis, Genetic algorithm (GA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The principal challenges in structural damage detection are how to ascertain emergence, location and extent of structural damage using the obtained structural dynamic responses. While identifying initial damage within structures, the influence on structural response caused by a small damage within the structure is very minute, and it is difficult to identify the small damage from the
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acquired structural response signals. Therefore, it is important to develop and extract a more reliable and sensitive damage feature index with the aid of advanced methods by combination of artificial intelligence and signal processing. The traditional type of methods are basically 1)method based on the change of natural frequency 2) method based on the change of structural flexibility or stiffness 3) method based on statistical information 4) method based on power flow. Added to the TTDD (Traditional type damage detection) methods, several concepts of Modern-type vibration-based structural damage detection methods have also been investigated. Briefly, a) Wavelet Analysis Method (WA): The idea behind using this method is based on splitting the dynamic signal of a structural response into a series of local basic function called wavelets [1,10], so as to detect the special characteristics of the structure using scaling and transformation property of wavelets. The spectrum graph obtained using wavelet transform can indicate the damage existence directly. b) Neural Network Method (NN): Within a well trained NN, one can input the experimentally measured real structural damage feature index into the trained NN, and the output of the trained NN will be able to give the location and severity of the structural damage. The prerequisite to realize this intention is only to obtain the dynamic response data of damaged structure by online measurement and some known information to train the NN. The dynamics-based damage detection is an effective method due to its ability of acquiring both the global and the local information of the structure. c) Curvature mode shape assessment: Lestari and Hanagud [5] used few lower order curvature modes to identify damage location based on the difference between the acquired data of healthy and damaged structures. The mathematical relationship of both the measured data and dynamic parameters was used to estimate the severity of the damage. The detection technique was extended using a Heaviside step function. The amplitude difference of curvature mode shapes was employed to estimate the local stiffness loss due to damage. The first three curvature modes were used in the damage assessment as the curvature nodal points of damaged structures at higher modes may shift significantly from the original undamaged case. This could generate misleading results. Hamey et al. [7] evaluated several damage detection algorithms in carbon/epoxy composite beams with several possible damage configurations. The results


proved that all the methods of the curvature modes measured by the piezoelectric sensors could be used as a potential tool in damage detection methods and the damage index method (DIM) detected and isolated the damage better than other ones reviewed. Saying that, in all the algorithms used, the information of healthy structures was needed in the implementation. These algorithms could possibly be a vital part of the neural network. Lestari and Qiao [2] also adopted a similar approach of using the curvature mode shapes to detect debonding and core crushing in composite honeycomb sandwich beams, and both the location and relative size of damage were evaluated. In their study, the delamination detection in composite plates was carried out using a scanning laser vibrometer (SLV) with a mechanical actuator, from which the displacement mode shapes were measured directly. The curvature mode shapes were then implemented with a few relatively new damage detection algorithms to evaluate the location and size of the delamination. Experimentally measured data of dynamic response are sometimes not directly useful for damage detection. They are often coupled with damage detection algorithms, as part of data reduction procedures to extract the useful information. which might include changes in the second moment of inertia, material loss due to damage, friction or contact effects between delaminated part and primary part for delamination case. By assuming is the stiffness loss parameter at the location of , the effect of damage on the damage,

stiffness distribution of the beam was expressed as

(2) where H is a Heaviside step function; EI0 is the bending stiffness of the undamaged structures; x1 and x2 are the beginning and the end of damage area, respectively as shown in Fig 1.

Figure 1. Details of damage region

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Equation of Motion The analytical relationship is developed based on EulerBernoulli beam theory, and the governing equation for beam in vibration can be expressed as

The derivation of mathematical relationship of highly localized or notched type of damage could be found in the previous work by Lestari [5]. Currently, extension of this analysis taking the thickness (h) of the panel into consideration is in progress.

3 EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
In this study, experiments on the Vibrometer (SLV) were conducted on carbon/epoxy composite beams with simulated defects to evaluate system setup parameters. Various beams (Fig 2) were manufactured by the vacuum bag resin infusion technique (VBRI) and hand lay-up technique [14, 15, 16]. A total of 9 specimens were manufactured within which 7 samples had artificial delaminations, 1 specimen with no delamination (healthy specimen) and 1 specimen for material testing. Carbon fibre reinforced epoxy unidirectional (UD) prepregs each 0.125mm thick were used to make the composite beams along with Teflon impregnated glass film (~60m) inserted as artificial delaminations. A total of 32 plies were cut and arranged into a 550mm X 450mm rectangle and stacked using the hand layup technique [14,15,16] using a hand roller onto a steel plate in a Quasi Isotropic & Symmetric layup [(+45 0 -45 90)s]n ; n=6 (Figure 2).

(1) where EI(x) is the bending stiffness distribution of the beam, m(x) is the mass distribution of the beam per unit length along the x-axis, and W(x,t) is the displacement of the beam as a function of the location (x) and time (t). Lestari and Hanagud [5] have extended this relation onto a thin composite plate using a Heaviside step function to address the extent of damage in the panel. The authors found the effect of the neutral axis changes due to the damage and assumed it to be negligible. The distribution of the bending stiffness along the beam is a function of location of damage, and the loss of stiffness due to the damage was expressed as a nondimensional parameter. The stiffness loss factor was introduced in the model as a measure of the extent of the damage presence in the structures. This factor represents equivalent bending stiffness loss in the damaged area, which can be caused by a combination of several factors. Few parameters

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Figure 2. Various carbon/epoxy beams manufactured with defects for testing

After the over-laminate was fully cured, the composite was ready to be machined to make the required beam specimens for testing. Vibrations were induced in the samples using a mechanical shaker while being fixed to the shaker using thin double sided tape to minimize damping. An experimental setup was prepared using the Laser Vibrometer for testing of these composites as shown in Fig 3. Upon excitation, the responses were recorded using the Laser Vibrometer software for analysis. A database consisting of responses from all the carbon epoxy samples was recorded for further evaluation. The effect of damage on frequency response primarily provides global information about the condition of structures.

In addition, the natural frequencies are very sensitive to interference, especially at the higher order modes.

Figure 3. Experimental Setup

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Few examples of interference include fibre misalignment during manufacture, introduction of non-negligible mass by sensors, and simulated approximate boundary conditions that prompt the largest error in the frequency measurement [17]. The location of the defect can be estimated with the percentage of change in the natural frequencies of intact and damaged structures which depend on the position of the defect for a particular mode of vibration. From the responses, the first 4 modes were selected and displacement mode shapes for the selected modes were generated. When the responses of the healthy sample to the defect were compared against each other, there were noticeable differences in the peaks as well as difference in the displacement mode shapes. This difference potentially indicates the presence of damage within the sample compared against the healthy one. The response signatures obtained after comparing sample #1 composite beam with the response signature of the healthy specimen (assumed as the reference) is illustrated in Figure 4 and 5. The difference in the displacement and curvature mode shapes between the intact and the damaged specimen is utilized to detect the location of the defect. The difference in the signal between the healthy and defect sample would potentially indicate the presence and location of the damage. A difference algorithm was used to estimate the change in displacement between healthy and defect sample to the original value. The resultant value () described below highlighted the change in signatures.

(3) where, - Magnitude of displacement of a point

4 MODE SHAPE ANALYSIS

A crack or flaw within a structure reduces the stiffness and increases the damping in the structure. Such a reduction in stiffness is allied with decreases in the natural frequencies and alteration of the modes of vibration of the structure. Several researchers have used one or more of the above characteristics to detect and locate a crack. Systematic change in the first mode shape with respect to the damage location within a cantilever beam was observed during the analysis of various mode shapes [19]. They based their findings using finite element analysis to obtain the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of a damaged structure. From changes in frequency they could determine the presence of crack or damage in a structure. Numerous researchers have probed into the utility of displacement mode shapes and curvature mode shapes in damage detection [18].

on the reference specimen acquired. Magnitude of displacement of the same point over specimen under test (defect sample). - Ratio of absolute difference of displacement magnitudes between Healthy and Defect specimen to the reference displacement magnitude from a healthy specimen. was computed for modes 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Lestari et al [5], used few lower order modes to identify damage location based on the difference between the acquired data of healthy and damaged structures. Lower order modes were preferred in the damage assessment as the nodal points of damaged structures at high modes may shift significantly from the original undamaged case. This could generate misleading results. The resultant curve could be used to estimate the approximate damage size and location within the specimen under test. Only results from mode 1 were applicable for damage assessment as higher modes produced misleading peaks. Numerous researchers have studied the systematic change in the first mode shape with respect to damage identification [19].

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Figure 4. Comparison of Full range FRF signal between Sample 1 and a healthy Sample

HealthySample

Figure 5. Close up plots for portions (a) & (b) in Figure 4.

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The actual location of the delamination is validated using the C-Scan result as shown in Figure 6. magnitudes. The resultant curvature plots indicate the presence and location of damage. As observed from the curvature plots for individual samples shown in Fig 7, only Mode 1 was analysed to indicate the presence of damage within the specimen as higher modes produce results which were less convincing. From the resultant curve (Fig 8) using the subtracting algorithm, the sudden spike in magnitudes extends between points 11 and 15. As the figure illustrates, the sudden spike in magnitudes extends between points 11 and 15. Thus the damage zone is approximately 38.68 mm similar to the estimation from displacement mode shapes.

Figure 6. Actual location of delamination within sample #1 as determined from a C-Scan

utilized to detect the location of the defect.

The Curvature (
Where,

at a point is given by (4)

Magnitude

Numerous researchers have probed into the utility of curvature mode shapes in damage detection [18].The difference in the curvature mode shapes between the intact and the damaged specimen is

Sample1 Curvature Mode Shape Mode 1

3.00E04 2.00E04 1.00E04 0.00E+00 1.00E04

1 6 11 16 21 26

31 36 41 46

L5 51 56

SamplePoint
The curvature at a section,

Curvature mode shape can be obtained by using piezoelectric sensors mounted on the sample [20] or by the application of a numerical algorithm to convert displacement mode shapes to curvature mode shapes. Curvature mode shape is the second derivative of a displacement mode shape. By using the Central Difference Approximation (CDA) technique over displacement mode shapes; curvature mode shapes can be generated. Equation below estimates the curvature at a point using the central difference approximation method.

Magnitude

M - The bending moment at the section, E - The modulus of elasticity I - The second moment of the cross-sectional area.

Healthy Sample Curvature Mode Shape Mode 1 3.00E04

2.00E04 1.00E04 0.00E+00 1.00E04

1 6 11 16 21 26 31

36 41 46 51 56 SamplePoint

L5

Figure 7. Curvature mode shape for sample 1 and healthy sample for the first mode of vibration

(5) where, The curvature at a section or nodal point Magnitudes of displacements at nodal points 1, 2 and 3 respectively h- Distance between 2 consecutive nodal points. Using the central difference approximation method the curvatures for the samples were calculated from the displacement data obtained from the PSV-400 Laser Vibrometer System. A subtracting algorithm was employed to compute the absolute difference between the healthy and defect curvature
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Figure 8. Resultant curvature plot between defect sample #1 and Healthy sample

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Finite element analysis (FEA) has wide applications and enjoys extensive utilization in the structural, thermal and fluid analysis areas [19]. The advantages of FEA are numerous and important. In this study, FEA was initiated to complement and validate the damage detection algorithms. Initial FE models were created by modelling the composite with the solid element (8node82) in ANSYS. A load was applied load (in direction) at 400mm from the left end of the beam, node numbering was used to get x = 0.4 m, y = 0.0 m as shown in Figure 9.A bilinear element (Link10) in ANSYS was used to model the delamination as shown in Figure 9. A delamination was simulated using Link10 which is a 3-D spar element designed as compression-only element, which means that the stiffness is zero if the element is under tension.
Delamination (0.25 mm thick)
100 40

The mode shapes acquired from FEA were very similar and nodal displacements were very close to the experimental results. Fig 10 shows the resultant curvature plots for mode 1 acquired by both FEA and LSV system as an example.

Excitationpt. Delamination

150

Delamination

Excitationpt.

550

1-2 kHz

Figure 10. Comparison of Mode 1 Resultant curvature plots acquired from (a) ANSYS and (b) LSV system

Figure9. FE model describing damage.

The initial results from the FE analysis that were obtained for various natural frequencies and displacement mode shapes were very encouraging. Table 1 describes the comparison between natural frequencies obtained experimentally and using FEA.
Table 1. Comparison between Natural Frequencies obtained from FE model and LSV system.

The discrepancy between the frequency values shown in Table 1 is probably due to the boundary condition differences between the 2D model and the actual experimental test coupon, where only a fraction of the edge was constrained.

CONCLUSION
The damage within the Carbon/Epoxy beams could be identified successfully by both the displacement mode shape analysis as well as curvature mode shape analysis. The displacement mode shape provides a global snapshot through the frequency domain range, is a valid method for a globalized technique of damage identification. The curvature mode shape being the double derivative of the displacement mode shape is more of a localised technique. The size and location of the delamination in one place was successfully identified by both these techniques and validated using the C-scan results. A denser scanning mesh is employed by the use of the Laser Vibrometer system as compared to a system using a PZT503

Mode

FEA (Hz)

Laser Vibrometer (Hz) 111.3 278.1 540 1005

1 2 3 4

136.795 336.526 468.86 1207


PVDF system. It can measure the displacement response at individual scan points, thus generating the displacement mode shapes. The present study focuses on the identification of the presence, location, and size of delamination in the laminated composite plates by extracting the modal parameters obtained from the SLV measurement system. The experimental program comprises of testing Carbon/epoxy composite laminated plates with embedded delamination using the SLV actuatorsensor measurement system. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been initiated to complement the damage detection and to demonstrate the validity of the damage detection algorithms. Future work involves improving the FE model to increase the overall accuracy. The observation of the results indicates that the experimental approach using the SLV measurement systems is somewhat successful in extracting the modal parameters and thus helps in determining the existence, location and size of delamination. 8 Pandey, A.K., Biswas, M. and Samman, M.M. 1991. Damage Detection from Changes in Curvature Mode Shapes, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 145(2):321332. Kessler, S.S., Spearing, S.M., Atalla, M.J., Cesnik, C.E.S. and Soutis, C. 2002. Damage Detection in Composite Materials using Frequency Response Methods, Composites Part B: Engineering, 33(1):8795. Y.J. Yan, L.H. Yam, Online detection of crack damage in composite plates using embedded piezoelectric actuators/sensors and wavelet analysis, Composite Structures 58 (1) (2002) 2938. C.Y. Kao, S.L. Hung, Detection of structural damage via free vibration responses generated by approximating artificial neural networks, Computers & Structures 81 (2829) (2003) 26312644. J.H. Chou, J. Ghaboussi, Genetic algorithm in structural damage detection, Computers & Structures 79 (14) (2001) 13351353. C.J. Lu, Y.T. Hsu, Vibration analysis of an inhomogeneous string for damage detection by wavelet transform, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 44 (4) (2002) 745754. Mallick, P., Fibre-Reinforced Composites: Materials, Manufacturing and Design. 1 ed. 1988, New York: Marcel and Dekker Inc. Barbero, E., Introduction to composite materials design. 1 ed. 1999, Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis Inc. Schwartz, M., Composite materials volume II: processing, fabrication and application. 1 ed. 1996, New Jersey: Prentice Hall PTR Kessler, S.S., Spearing, S.M., Atalla, M.J., Cesnik, C.E.S. and Soutis, C, Damage Detection in Composite Materials using Frequency Response Methods. Composites Part B: Engineering, 2002. 33(1): p. 8795. Hamey, C.S., Lestari, W., Qiao, P., Song, G, Experimental Damage Identification of Carbon/Epoxy Composite Beams using Curvature Mode Shapes. International Journal of Structural Health Monitoring, 2004. 3(4): p. 333353. Yan, Y.J., L. H. Yam, FEM modeling method of damage structures for structural damage detection. Composite Structures, 2006. 72(2): p. 193-199. Lestari W, Q.P., Damage detection of fiberreinforced polymer honeycomb sandwich beams. Composite Structures, 2005. 67(3): p. 3657.

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