An investigation of fatigue damage growth in composites materials using the vibration response phase decay

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method using vibration phase decay to monitor fatigue crack growth in composite materials, aiming for faster and more cost-effective damage detection.

Contribution

It presents an experimental framework that correlates phase decay measurements with crack growth, offering a new approach for damage assessment in composites.

Findings

Phase decay correlates with crack growth.

Method enables damage detection during fatigue testing.

Potential for real-time damage monitoring.

Abstract

The increasing use of polymer composites in industry asks for the creation of better, faster and cost-effective methods to detect the damage state of such materials. This work presents the investigation of the phase decay , $\Delta{\Phi}$, as a new parameter to characterise crack growth in composites materials utilising an experimental framework of High Frequency Fatigue Testing (HFFT), a framework where the excitation occurs at vibration resonance. The proposed methodology empirically relates the crack growth measurements, from interrupted testing, with the structural phase decay response, distinctive of material strength degradation