Enhancing thermographic characterisation of delaminated zones in CFRP composites through data fusion with ultrasonic Lamb Waves technique

Abstract

Every Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) technique has some advantages and some limitations. To overcome these, investigations on how to improve the advantages and overcome the limitations of each technique are often reported. Another approach is the fusion of quantitative results extracted from different techniques. In this study, thermal diffusivities are extracted from InfraRed Thermographic inspection and Root Mean Square (RMS) signal values are extracted from Lamb Waves inspection in various structures of CFRP samples including damaged zones. The results shown that the fusion of thermal diffusivity and RMS values allowed us to obtain a better characterisation of damaged zones, particularly for stiffened samples and for samples damaged from artificial lightning strike test. These results allow us to highlight very interesting perspectives for a new philosophy around NDT.