Lock-in Thermography as a tool for the Detection of Damages in “Eco” Composite Materials

Thanks to their advanced properties, composite materials have found applications in important industrial sectors. In particular, in the last decades, the use of natural reinforcing fibers has gained an increasing attention allowing the development of new materials with the same advantages of conventional composite systems but respecting the environment, too. In this frame, the development and identification of fast and low cost non-destructive tools for their quality control is of fundamental importance. In this work, the Lock-in thermography was tested for the analysis of samples belonging to six different "eco" composite materials on which delamination damage was induced. The results obtained are promising and show how the active thermography technique used is well suited for the detection of this kind of defects allowing also a quantitative characterization of their extension.