A method for the localization of damage in a CFRP plate using damping

In the past 25 years, the scientific and industrial communities have made great efforts on the fields of damage detection and structural health monitoring (SHM). However. no single approach has proven appropriate for all situations. Composite materials, which are receiving an increasing attention in the aeronautical industry. namely carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP), are very sensitive to impacts of medium and low energy. Typically, barely visible impact damage (BVID) will occur, constituting an unsafe failure of difficult assessment. To assess (detect, locate and quantify) damage in this kind of material is still a challenge, especially if a huge amount of sensors or expensive equipments at hand are not used. In this work, a methodology that makes use of a reduced amount of conventional sensors is explored, with the aim of locating damage for a low cost on components that are subjected to impacts during service. This represents a considerable benefit, namely for the assessment of damage in aeronautical components, compared to most methods used today. This work can also give a major contribution to the research community since uncommon approaches will be used to model damage in composite materials, namely the modal damping factor as the main feature for damage localization. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.