Ultrasonic NDE Techniques for Impact Damage Inspection on CFRP Laminates

Abstract

This study investigates the different types of ultrasonic inspection, when applied to assess the impact damage in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic CFRP laminates. The study surveys the two most used ultrasonic testing approaches first; namely the pulse-echo and the through-transmission modes. Then, the manuscript discusses and analyzes the enhanced ultrasonic testing methods that use the polar scattering, the thickness independent techniques, air-coupled, and the techniques based on the Ultrasonic Rayleigh and Lamb Waves. Additionally, presented study demonstrates some of these techniques to test a CFRP sample with embedded defects, along with the processing required for the acquired results such as the wavelet transformation.