Ultrasonic guided wave propagation in a repaired stiffened composite panel

Shirsendu Sikdar, Piotr Fiborek, Paweł Malinowski, Wiesław Ostachowicz

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Stiffened carbon-fibre-reinforced composite structures are extensively used in the aerospace industry for constructing aircraft wings, fuselage, and several other structural components. These structures are often prone to damage due to ageing, cyclic loading and impact. The wave propagation based structural health monitoring technique is widely used for identifying such damage in these structures. This paper presents the analysis of guided wave propagation in a repaired stiffened composite aircraft-wing panel, in order to understand the wave propagation phenomenon in such complex multi-layered structure. Towards this, a coordinated theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation has been carried out. The dispersion curves for the structure are theoretically obtained by using a fast and efficient semi-analytical model to study the dispersion characteristics of the propagating guided waves at the high-frequency range. An extensive finite element based numerical simulation of guided wave propagation in the sample structure is carried out in ABAQUS. Based on the theoretically obtained dispersion curves, different wave modes in the signals are effectively identified. It is observed that the presence of a localized patch repair region in the structure significantly influences the wave mode amplitudes and propagation velocities. Laboratory experiments are then conducted, in order to verify the numerical simulation results. A good agreement is noticed between the simulation and experimental results, in all the cases studied. A series of parametric study is also numerically carried out, in order to check the influence of repaired region size on the propagating guided wave modes in the structure.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHealth Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems XIII
EditorsPaul Fromme, Zhongqing Su
PublisherSPIE
Number of pages8
Volume10972
ISBN (Electronic)9781510626003
ISBN (Print)9781510625990
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2019
Externally publishedYes
EventHealth Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems XIII - Denver, United States
Duration: 3 Mar 20197 Mar 2019
Conference number: 13

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume10972
ISSN (Print)0277-786X
ISSN (Electronic)1996-756X

Conference

ConferenceHealth Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems XIII
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDenver
Period3/03/197/03/19

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