Defect characterization in commercial carbon-carbon composites

Abstract

A relatively inexpensive and easy to operate custom built infrared thermography (IRT) system was developed and utilized for the detection and characterization of defects in Carbon-Carbon (C/C) composite aircraft brake disks. This method uses an active infrared thermography (IRT) approach, i.e. Flash Heating method, for a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of C/C brake disk materials. The experimental results obtained from the developed system were then compared with commercial IRT turn-key system. In addition, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was also carried out to determine the detectible defect depth and diameter of the defects in C/C composites to validate the experimental results. The experimental results were compared to the FEA results and it was found that they were in good agreement with one another.

Citation

Chu, T., Don, J., Pan, Y. and Poudel, A. (2013), "Defect characterization in commercial carbon-carbon composites", World Journal of Engineering, Vol. 9 No. 6, pp. 481-486. https://doi.org/10.1260/1708-5284.9.6.481