Evaluation of interlayer interfacial stiffness and layer wave velocity of multilayered structures by ultrasonic spectroscopy

Ultrasonic evaluation of ply and interleaf layer properties of interleaved composite laminates

An ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation procedure is presented for the ply and interleaf layer properties of carbon/epoxy composite laminates having interleaf resin layers at their interlaminar interfaces. It is shown that the material properties of plies (density, thickness, and transversely isotropic complex elastic moduli) and elastic interleaf layers (density, thickness, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio) can be identified by best fitting the theoretical energy transmission spectra of longitudinal waves through the laminate immersed in water to those obtained in ultrasonic measurement. It is also demonstrated that compared to the mass-less and null-thickness spring-type interlaminar interface model employed in the previous works, the present finite-thickness interleaf layer model can better reproduce the experimental transmission spectra of a unidirectional interleaved composite laminate containing ultrasonic bandgaps. Furthermore, the property characterization in the case where the plies and interleaf layers are assumed to be elastic and viscoelastic, respectively, is also examined. It is also shown that the ply and interleaf layer properties determined for the unidirectional laminate can be used to reproduce the transmission spectra measured for a quasi-isotropic laminate consisting of the same plies and interleaf layers.

Ultrasonic Welding of Novel Carbon/ Elium® Thermoplastic Composites with Flat and Integrated Energy Directors: Lap Shear Characterisation and Fractographic Investigation

The current research work presents a first attempt to investigate the welding attributes of Elium^® thermoplastic resin and the fusion bonding using ultrafast ultrasonic welding technique. The integrated energy director (ED) polymer-matrix composites (PMCs) panel manufacturing was carried out using the Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) technique and the scheme is deduced to manufacture a bubble-free panel. Integrated ED configurations and flat specimens with Elium^® film of different thickness at the interface were investigated for ultrasonic welding optimization. Optimised weld time for integrated ED and flat Elium^® panels with film (0.5 mm thick) configuration was found to be 1 s and 5.5 s, respectively. The ED integrated configuration showed the best welding results with a lap shear strength of 18.68 MPa. The morphological assessment has shown significant plastic deformation of Elium^® resin and the shear cusps formation, which enhances the welding strength. This research has the potential to open up an excellent and automated way of joining Elium^® composite parts in automotive, wind turbines, sports, and many other industrial applications.

Advances in Ultrasonic Welding of Thermoplastic Composites: A Review

The ultrasonic welding (UW) technique is an ultra-fast joining process, and it is used to join thermoplastic composite structures, and provides an excellent bonding strength. It is more cost-efficient as opposed to the conventional adhesive, mechanical and other joining methods. This review paper presents the detailed progress made by the scientific and research community to date in the direction of the UW of thermoplastic composites. The focus of this paper is to review the recent development of the ultrasonic welding technique for thermoplastic composites to thermoplastic composites, and to dissimilar materials. Different ultrasonic welding modes and their processing parameters, namely, weld time, weld pressure, amplitude, type of energy directors (EDs) affecting the welding quality and the advantages and disadvantages of UW over other bonding techniques, are summarized. The current state of the ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic composites and their future perspectives are also deliberated.

Investigation on Ultrasonic Welding Attributes of Novel Carbon/Elium® Composites

Joining large and complex polymer–matrix composite structures is becoming increasingly important in industries such as automobiles, aerospace, sports, wind turbines, and others. Ultrasonic welding is an ultra-fast joining process and also provides excellent joint quality as a cost-effective alternative to other joining processes. This research aims at investigating the welding characteristics of novel methyl methacrylate Elium^®, a liquid thermoplastic resin. Elium^® is the first of its kind of thermoplastic resin, which is curable at room temperature and is suitable for mass production processes. The welding characteristics of Elium^® composites were investigated by optimizing the welding parameters with specially designed integrated energy directors (ED) and manufactured using the Resin transfer molding process. The results showed a 23% higher lap shear strength for ultrasonically welded composite joints when compared to the adhesively bonded joints. The optimized welding time for the ultrasonic welded joint was found to be 1.5 s whereas it was 10 min for the adhesively bonded joint. Fractographic analysis showed the significant plastic deformation and shear cusps formation on the fractured surface, which are typical characteristics for strong interfacial bonding.

Simultaneous ultrasonic parameter estimation of a multi-layered material by the PSO-based least squares algorithm using the reflection spectrum

Advanced multi-layered materials with superior performance are required for many applications. The non-destructive characterization of multi-layer properties is a hot spot of current research. The least squares inversion method using the reflection spectrum has been developed and widely used to estimate the properties of thin single layers simultaneously. However this method has the problems of a loss in speed and simplicity, and a local optimal solution, especially in the cases of a multi-layered structure because of the increasing estimated parameters and the uncertainty influence from the parameters. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a robust global search algorithm similar to 'bird' foraging, which can be used to improve the performance of the least squares inversion algorithm. This paper has proposed a PSO-based least squares estimation using the ultrasonic reflection spectrum to make simultaneous measurement. The simulation and experiment, carried out on the aluminum-TC4 bi-layered material, tested and proved the capability of the new algorithm. The real measured parameters and the estimated parameters were obtained. The results have been compared to analyze the errors of the estimated parameters.

Study of guided wave propagation on a plate between two solid bodies with imperfect contact conditions

In this work, fundamental symmetric Lamb wave S0 mode is characterized in terms of its velocity variation as function of the interfacial conditions between solid bodies in contact. Imperfect contact conditions are numerically and experimentally determined by using ultrasonic Lamb wave propagation parameters. For the study, an experimental system was used, formed by two solid aluminum rods (25.4mm in diameter) axially loading a thin aluminum plate to control contact interfacial stiffness. The axially applied load on the aluminum plate was varied from 0MPa to 10MPa. Experimental Lamb wave signals were excited on the plate through two longitudinal contact transducers (1MHz of central frequency) using a pitch-catch configuration. Numerical simulations of contact conditions and Lamb wave propagation were performed through Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in commercial software, ANSYS 15®. Simulated Lamb wave signals were generated by means of a 5 cycles tone burst signals with different frequency values. Results indicate a velocity change in both, experimental and simulated Lamb wave signals as function of the applied load. Finally, a comparison between numerical results and experimental measurements was performed obtaining a good agreement.

Ultrasonic wave transmission and bandgap in multidirectional composite laminates with spring-type interlayer interfaces

The ultrasonic wave transmission through multidirectional composite laminates is studied theoretically by accounting for the effect of thin interlayer resin-rich regions based on the spring-type interface model. Using the stiffness-matrix method, the energy transmission spectrum of the longitudinal wave impinging obliquely on cross-ply and quasi-isotropic laminates immersed in water is calculated. The location and bandwidth of the frequency ranges where the transmissivity becomes vanishingly small are shown to be significantly influenced by the incident angle, the laminate lay-up, and the interlayer interfacial stiffnesses. By examining the energy flux density of partial waves inside the laminate, these frequency ranges are shown to be the bandgaps due to the constructive interference of scattered waves from the interlayer interfaces. The mode combination causing the interference is found to vary remarkably with the bandgap location. Furthermore, the interference in the finite laminate structure is shown to occur in almost the same manner as the Floquet wave does in the infinitely extended laminate structure. The energy transmission spectrum is experimentally measured for 16-ply carbon/epoxy cross-ply and quasi-isotropic composite laminates using the through-transmission technique. The transmission and bandgap characteristics observed in the experimental results are reasonably reproduced by the present theory incorporating the interlayer resin-rich regions.

Reflection and transmission coefficients of the SH0 mode in the adhesive structures with imperfect interface

Compared with body waves, ultrasonic guided waves can provide more local characteristic information about the interface in the defect detection of adhesive structures. In the paper, the expressions of the reflection and transmission coefficients of the lowest SH mode (SH0) in multilayered plate-like adhesive structure were deduced on the basis of wave propagation controlling equations and tangential stiffness coefficient KT was contained in the expressions. Then, the expressions were compared with the previous results to verify their applicability and correctness. Then, aluminum/epoxy resin/aluminum adhesive structures were used to explore the effects of the changes in incident angle, frequency-thickness product and tangential stiffness coefficient on SH wave propagation characteristics in adhesive structures with different interface quality (perfect, weak bonding, and slip/debonding interfaces). The results showed that the propagation mode of SH wave in adhesive structures was mainly determined by the incident angle, frequency, adhesive layer thickness and tangential stiffness coefficient. With the increase in the frequency-thickness product, multi-order resonance is generated in the reflection and transmission coefficient curves of SH wave under the perfect and weak bonding interfaces. If proper values of the incident angle of acoustic waves and frequency-thickness product are selected, the perfect, weak bonding, and slip/debonding interfaces can be differentiated from each other, but the slip and debonding interfaces cannot be distinguished from each other. The study provides theoretical contribution to the detection of multilayered plate-like adhesive structure by SH wave.

Transmission of ultrasonic waves at oblique incidence to composite laminates with spring-type interlayer interfaces

The transmission characteristics of ultrasonic waves at oblique incidence to composite laminates are analyzed theoretically by the stiffness matrix method. The analysis takes into account the presence of thin resin-rich regions between adjacent plies as spring-type interfaces with normal and shear stiffnesses. The amplitude transmission coefficient of longitudinal wave through a unidirectional laminate immersed in water is shown to be significantly influenced by the frequency, the interlayer interfacial stiffnesses, and the incident angle. Using Floquet's theorem, the dispersion relation of the infinitely extended laminate structure is calculated and compared to the transmission coefficient of laminates of finite thickness. This reveals that the ranges of frequency and interfacial stiffnesses where the Floquet waves lie in the band-gaps agree well with those where the transmission coefficient of the finite layered structure is relatively small, indicating that the band-gaps appear even in the laminate with a finite number of plies. The amplitude transmission coefficient for an 11-ply carbon-epoxy unidirectional composite laminate is experimentally obtained for various frequencies and incident angles. The low-transmission zones observed in the experimental results, which are due to the critical angle of the quasi-longitudinal wave and the Bragg reflection, are shown to be favorably compared with the theory.