Identification of impact damage in CRRP laminates using the NDT approach

The motivation for this work is to identify impact damage in structures made from composite material. The composite material chosen for this research was Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) prepreg with a MTM57 epoxy resin system with CF2900 fabric. This material was fabricated to produce laminated plate specimens of 250 mm $ 150 mm with 11, 12 and 13 layers of thickness. PZT sensors were placed at three different points on each of the plate specimens to record the responses from impact events. The impact test was performed using an instrumented drop test rig and the impact energies were set to range from 2.61 J to 41.72 J. All the signals captured from the impact test were recorded using a LMS data acquisition system and the impacted plate specimens were later examined using X-rays to evaluate the damage area. The correlation between the damage area in terms of the impact energy and the force detected is presented and discussed.