ANALYSIS OF IMPACT DAMAGE USING LINE SCANNING THERMOGRAPHY

Impact damage in a composite shaft was studied using Line Scanning Thermography (LST), a novel dynamic thermography technique capable of inspecting large areas in short times. It is expected that projectile impact in a laminate composite will generate a discontinuity that affects heat propagation. Therefore, as heat is deposited over the impacted region, a hot spot will be observed. In this study several impact points were evaluated using UT and LST. Experiments show that assessing impact damage using LST is a dynamic process, which should be accounted for when using dynamic thermography to quantify impact damage extension and severity. The LST images provided information about the region affected by impact damage, which was consistent with the damage region determined using UT. It is seen that the damage areas obtained at early observation time after heat application show small areas with severe damage; and for further times after heat application, the temperature of the hot spots drops and the size of the region affected increases with time following a linear relationship with the observation time.