DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

WARANGAL,TELANGANA-506004
A report on

NDT TECHNIQUES IN TESTING OF COMPOSITE

MATERIALS

submitted by
T KRISHNA MURTHY
ROLL NO:143517
MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING
submitted to
Dr. KANMANI SUBBU
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

I. INTRODUCTION
By definition non-destructive testing is the testing of materials, for surface or internal
flaws or metallurgical condition, without interfering in any way with the integrity of the material
or its suitability for service.
In the life of a structure, impacts by foreign objects can be expected to occur during
manufacturing, service, and maintenance operations. In composite structures, impacts create
internal damage that often cannot be detected by visual inspection. This internal damage can
cause severe reductions in strength and can grow under load. Therefore, proper measures should
be taken in the design process to account for these expected events. Concerns about the effect of
impacts on the performance of composite structures have been a limiting factor in the wide
spread use of composite materials. For this reasons, the problem of impact has received
considerable attention.
In Metal matrix composite(MMC), however, there are fewer modes of damage than in
resin matrix composites. In most MMC, the matrix dominated failure such as delamination,
matrix spitting and matrix cracks, are much more limited when they occur at all.
II. TESTING OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS
Table lists some NDT techniques used for composites, including the advantages and the
disadvantages for each technique. NDT can be performed prior to the final failure either in real
time by continuously monitoring the composite during service or at selected service intervals by
removing the composites from the load environment to perform the tests. The principal objective
is to provide the assurance on the quality and structural integrity of a particular component. As a
general guide there are two main approaches of the use of NDT to assess quality. The first one
aims to provide a qualitative assessment. The second one is less subjective and employs
quantitative acceptance standards. Since NDT methods have different sensitivities to different
types of damage, as a general rule, two or more NDT methods should be used to provide
complementary information on the state of damage to composites. Techniques used are acoustic
emission, ultrasonic, eddy currents, radiography, computed tomography, thermography, low
frequency vibration and non contacting electromagnetic acoustic transducers.

1.ULTRASONIC TEST SYSTEM

Ultrasonic test systems can take several forms, but the most common for automated test
is immersion testing, as shown in Figure. To have good acoustical impedance matching between
the couplant and the UUT and free range over the entire surface of the UUT, many test systems
use an immersion tank filled with water.

Fig: Ultrasonic test system

These test systems use one or more ultrasonic transducers, which are moved over the
surface of the unit under test (UUT). As the transducer is moved over the surface, it is pulsed and
receives echoes from various surfaces. This process is repeated many times a second - sometimes
more than 50,000 times per second (>50 kHz). There are several pieces of the test system that
must work together to get expected results.
The following list includes the steps, and the accompanying hardware and software
pieces, required to get one pulse and the subsequent echoes:
I.

Application software - The user interacts with the application software to set up the test
and presentation parameters.

II.

Motion control - The ultrasonic transducer is moved over the appropriate area over the
UUT.

III.

Communication - The pulser/receiver operation parameters, such as pulse energy, pulse

damping, and bandpass filtering, are set. The communication path is typically RS232 or
USB.

IV.

Pulser/receiver - This device generates the high-voltage pulse that is required by the
ultrasonic transducer.

V.

VI.
VII.
VIII.

Ultrasonic transducer - The transducer is pulsed, sending out an ultrasonic wave. The
subsequent echoes generate a voltage in the transducer, which is sent back to the
pulser/receiver.
Pulser/receiver - The analog signal from the ultrasonic transducer is amplified and
filtered before it is sent back to the digitizer within the PC.
Digitizer - The waveform sent from the pulser/receiver is converted from voltage to bits
using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC).
Application software - Data from the digitizer is processed, analyzed, and presented
according to the user-defined parameters.

2. Ultrasonic Transducer
Ultrasonic transducers are built around piezoelectric ceramics that vibrate at ultrasonic
frequencies when a voltage is applied, and generate voltages when vibrated. The piezoelectric
ceramics can be packaged in a variety of housings, depending on how they are used. For
instance, ultrasonic transducers used in field service are commonly contact sensors, and are
contoured to the surface to be inspected. These transducers have special wear and handling
requirements because of how they are used.
Ultrasonic transducers perform according to two main parameters: resolution and
sensitivity. The resolution of a particular transducer is denoted by its ability to discern between
two discontinuities that are on top of one another. A transducer with sufficient resolution will
stop ringing, or vibrating, from the first discontinuity before receiving the echo from the second
discontinuity. If the ceramic does not stop ringing before the second echo is received, the second
echo is masked from the test system. Sensitivity of an ultrasonic transducer refers to the ability to
detect small discontinuities.
The frequency of the transducer is chosen based on the required sensitivity and depth of
penetration. Remember that the higher the frequency, the better the sensitivity, but lower
penetration depth.
3. Pulser/Receiver (P/R)
These devices provide the high-voltage pulse required by the ultrasonic transducer as well as
signal conditioning before the analog signal is passed to the digitizer. For use within an automated
test system, the P/R should be computer programmable via a standard PC bus such as RS232 or
USB. The devices are typically programmed one time at the beginning of the test to set the pulse
voltage level, pulse repetition frequency, damping, band pass filtering settings, and several other
parameters. After these parameters are set, these devices are passive and do not send any
information back to the PC during operation.
The motion controller, digitizer, and P/R must operate as one tightly timed unit during the
test to ensure accuracy of results and brevity of test time. The P/R can act as the master time base

of the system or can act as a slave to the digitizer or motion controller. In the applications where
motion control is implemented, it is typically the slowest part of the system and, for that reason,
acts as the master time base.
There are several ways to look at ultrasonic test data ranging from Time of flight(TOF) to
surface scan. The most common scans are referred to as A-, B-, and C-scans.
The TOF scan, or A-scan, is analogous to the display on an oscilloscope, which displays
voltage amplitude versus depth. The depth is calculated by multiplying the speed of sound
through the medium by the time of flight.
The B-scan the echo peaks moving over time. B-scans display depth versus linear
position along the UUT.
C-scans display x- and y-position, while the color represents depth.(including the above)
2. PULSED THERMOGRAPHY (PT)
Pulsed thermography (PT) is one of the most popular thermal stimulation methods in
active thermography. One reason for this is the quickness of the inspection relying on a short
thermal stimulation pulse, with duration going from a few milliseconds for high conductivity
material inspection (such as metal) to a few seconds for low conductivity specimens.
According to the testing methodology in PT, the inspected sample surface should be
heated uniformly. For this purpose, a double or multiple flash lamp system with lamps arranged
symmetrically with respect to the IR camera is the preferred configuration as it permits both
increase and homogenization of the excitation power density over the sample surface. Flash
lamps differ concerning their heat radiation elements and their constructions. Lamps with an
open air emitter need additional transparent filters. The filter is utilized to retain the infrared
radiation coming from the hot shell of the lamp emitter after the excitation. This radiation is
undesirable as it can be reflected from the sample surface and surrounding objects into the
camera lens, affecting the thermal image.
The maximum amount of energy that could be injected into the target has an upper limit
determined by the temperature at which the material will begin to be damaged. In practice, heat
deposition boundary condition is set as a radiation pulsed stimulation with pulse parameters:
duration, amplitude and shape Side walls are set adiabatic and facial nodes incorporate radiation
and convection heat losses. Defectives are modelled air-gaps embedded in medium. The
maximum temperature contrast developed on the surfaces of a defective sample will be a
function of input pulse duration and power. These, in turn, are governed by the maximum
allowable surface temperature rise and material thermal constants. It is informative to first
consider the relationship between these parameters for transient heat flow in a defect-free
isotropic sample. When, at time t = 0, a slab of material is exposed to a constant heat source q0,
per unit area of surface, it will initially behave as a semi-infinite solid. At some time, tp, the heat
flow will penetrate to the rear surface and this will modify the temperature distribution through
the slab thickness. Using this thermal penetration time, the problem is solved by dividing into
pre-penetration and post-penetration periods.

In order to detect a defect, the signal must be above the noise equivalent temperature
difference (NETD), or stated in another way, the temperature signal of a defect must have a
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR, n) greater than 1. It is customary to define the minimum signal
detection level to be a multiple of the NETD, with a rule of thumb SNR value of n = 2.

Fig: Pulsed thermography

The temperature difference needed to detect the back side of the target is given as: T side
= n, where = NETD.
The minimum energy required for detecting the back side is given by: Qmin = nCL,
where is the density, C is the specific heat, and L is the thickness of the layer.
In order to observe a defect, the signal detection level must be an additional factor
greater than the back side detection level. Thus for a given signal level, m, and a
detectability threshold, n, the maximumdefect depth able to be detected is given by:
dmax = [m/(m + n)]L, m n.
At the minimum energy level, Qmin, the deepest detectable defect is at a depth of L/2.
The ability to detect deeper defects increases at a logarithmic rate with energy levels,
whereas the amount of thermal energy absorbed by the target is dependent on several

parameters, with a best case scenario found to have an efficiency of approximately 25%.
Therefore, the flash electrical energy must be: Welectrical - P(Qmin Area)/Efficiency.
REFERENCES:
1. The 10th International Conference of the Slovenian Society for Non-Destructive
Testing."Nondestructive test technology for the composites" by
B. Boro

Djordjevic.

2.

"Quality control and nondestructive tests in metal matrix composites" by Y. D. Huang*, L.

Froyen, M. Wevers.

3. How to reveal subsurface defects in Kevlar_ composite materials after an impact loading
using infrared vision and optical NDT techniques? by A. Bendada , S. Sfarra M. Genest ,
D. Paoletti , S. Rott , E. Talmy , C. Ibarra-Castanedo ,X. Maldague.