Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 17;21(8):2843.
doi: 10.3390/s21082843.

Detection and Quantification of Delamination Failures in Marine Composite Bulkheads via Vibration Energy Variations

Cristobal Garcia  1 , Alfonso Jurado  1 , Oscar Zaba  1 , Publio Beltran  1
Affiliations

Detection and Quantification of Delamination Failures in Marine Composite Bulkheads via Vibration Energy Variations

Cristobal Garcia et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This paper proposes a new vibration-based structural health monitoring method for the identification of delamination defects in composite bulkheads used in small-length fiber-based ships. The core of this work is to find out if the variations of vibration energy can be efficiently used as a key performance indicator for the detection and quantification of delamination defects in marine composite bulkheads. For this purpose, the changes of vibrational energy exerted by delamination defects in sandwich and monolithic composite panel bulkheads with different types of delamination phenomenon are investigated using a non-destructive test. Experiments show that the overall vibration energy of the bulkheads is directly dependent on the damage conditions of the specimens and therefore, the variations of this parameter are a good indicator of the incorporation of delamination defects in composite bulkheads. Additionally, the overall vibration energy changes also give interesting information about the severity of the delamination defect in the panels. Hence, this methodology based on vibratory energy can be used to accurately determine delamination defects in medium-sized composite bulkheads with the advantages of being a simple and cost-effective approach. The findings of this research possess important applications for the identification of delamination failures in composite components such as bulkheads, turbine blades, and aircraft structures, among others.

Keywords: composite laminates; delamination; non-destructive evaluation; sensing systems; vibration-based monitoring; vibrations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic description of the six sandwich and monolithic bulkheads tested in the context of this experimental campaign. The orange square of the frontal and superior views of the panels shows the location of the delamination regions in the composite bulkheads. The dark green region in the monolithic panels displays the reinforcements of the FRP monolithic bulkheads.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experimental setup of the modal analysis carried out in this investigation to determine the dynamic characteristics of the sandwich and monolithic bulkheads. The shaker excitation is applied artificially through a commercial vibrometer and the vibration outputs of the panels are measured using a set of commercial accelerometers as shown in both insets of the figure.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Frequency spectrum of the sandwich bulkhead panel in the measurement point 18.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Methodology applied for the evaluation of the structural integrity of the panels.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Schematic representation of the half power damping method used for the calculation of damping loss factor of the FRP bulkheads.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Overall vibration energy of the sandwich/monolithic bulkheads for each measurement point.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Three-dimensional map of vibratory energy levels in sandwich and monolithic panels.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Vibrational energy of the sandwich and monolithic bulkheads in percentage value as a function of the measurement point.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Comparison of the damping ratio in the intact sandwich and monolithic panels tested in this investigation.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Comparison of vibration mode shapes for sandwich panels in intact and damage conditions.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Comparison of the vibration mode shapes for monolithic panels in intact and damaged conditions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Muhammad A., Rahman M.R., Baini R., Bakri M.K.B. Applications of sustainable polymer composites in automobile and aerospace industry. Adv. Sustain. Polym. Compos. 2021:185–207.
    1. Sharma V.K., Kumar V., Joshi R.S. Investigation of rare earth particulate on tribological and mechanical properties of Al-6060 alloy composites for aerospace application. J. Mater. Res. Technol. 2019;8:3504–3516. doi: 10.1016/j.jmrt.2019.06.025. - DOI
    1. Jurado A., García C., Sánchez E., Beltran P. FIBRESHIP Project: Engineering, production and life cycle management for the complete construction of large length fibre-based ships; Proceedings of the Transport Research Arena 2020; Helsinki, Finland. 27–30 April 2020.
    1. Jurado A., García C., Sanchez E. FIBRESHIP, the greatest challenge of using composite materials for the construction of large-length ships; Proceedings of the Conference of Composite Materials (MATCOMP 19); Vigo, Spain. 7–8 October 2020.
    1. Paul R.C., Ramachandran B., Sushma G., Harshvardhan K.H.A. An empirical research on areca fiber polymer composite for automotive components in modern industry. Mater. Today. 2020;33:4493–4497.

LinkOut - more resources