Damage location assessment in a composite panel by means of electronic speckle pattern interferometry measurements

ABSTRACT The assessment of structural damage location in composite honeycomb sandwich panels is here pursued by means of a complete experimental non-destructive approach on a pre-damaged sample. In the experiments proposed full field displacement maps were acquired by means of optical non-contact Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) technology [1, 2], in order to obtain high spatial definition and locate small defects on the sample, like debondings, material separations, voids, cracks and delaminations. When dealing with holographic/speckle interferometry it is important to find the stressing technique able to produce singularities in the state of the object surface. Four different loading approaches were taken to detect the flaws: acoustic, thermal, static and harmonic excitation. The displacement maps acquired depict with high accuracy the inhomo-ge-neous local behavior of the structure induced by the defects. Results are reported from the different loading approaches and discussed in detail.