Non-Destructive Thermography Analysis of Impact Damage on Large-Scale CFRP Automotive Parts

Abstract

Laminated composites are increasingly used in aeronautics and the wind energy industry, as well as in the automotive industry. In these applications, the construction and processing need to fulfill the highest requirements regarding weight and mechanical properties. Environmental issues, like fuel consumption and CO2-footprint, set new challenges in producing lightweight parts that meet the highly monitored standards for these branches. In the automotive industry, one main aspect of construction is the impact behavior of structural parts. To verify the quality of parts made from composite materials with little effort, cost and time, non-destructive test methods are increasingly used. A highly recommended non-destructive testing method is thermography analysis. In this work, a prototype for a car’s base plate was produced by using vacuum infusion. For research work, testing specimens were produced with the same multi-layer build up as the prototypes. These specimens were charged with defined loads in impact tests to simulate the effect of stone chips. Afterwards, the impacted specimens were investigated with thermography analysis. The research results in that work will help to understand the possible fields of application and the usage of thermography analysis as the first quick and economic failure detection method for automotive parts.

NDT Methods for Evaluating FRP-Concrete Bond Performance

“…This system provides high contrast images and is effective in identifying defects in aircraft and automotive parts. It is not economical for scanning large CFRP areas [6].…”

Defect depth determination in a CFRP structure using TSR technique

“…The maximum possible diameters (length, width and height) are dependent on the flow-resistance and the type of resin, as well as the reinforcement structures, the component thickness and the effectiveness of the vacuum [8,9,10].Typically, with vacuum infusion, composite parts with a fiber percentage up to 60 % are possible [11]. [12]In Fig. 1 a typical vacuum infusion set-up is shown [12].…”

“…[12]In Fig. 1 a typical vacuum infusion set-up is shown [12]. The test sample structure consists of 5 carbon fibre layers, which are rotated to each other and in this way there are regions, where only 1, 2, 3, 4 and then 5 layers lie on each other, representing different thick samples in the corners (Fig.2).…”

Detection and Quantification of Defects in Composite Material by Using Thermal Wave Method

“…Generally, CFRP is tested with the ultrasonic testing but this operation is time consuming and sometimes not very accurate depending on the surface under exam and on the employed instrument. Significantly, a series of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods were developed to discover defects of every kind at an incipient stage [3][4][5][6][7][8].…”