IMAGE-ANALYSIS OF DELAMINATION CRACKS IN CARBON-FIBER COMPOSITES BY SCANNING ACOUSTIC MICROSCOPY

Fibre-reinforced composite laminates have been widely applied to many kinds of structures because of their superior properties. The delamina tion resistance of such composites is a weak point, however, and one o f the most important problems is the non-destructive detection of dela mination cracks. bn high-resolving-power observations with developed s canning acoustic microscope (SAM) have been conducted for a study of t he applicability of the technique for non-destructive inspection of de lamination. The high-resolving-power observations were applied to carb on-fibre/epoxy and carbon-fibre/PEEK unidirectional, multidirectional reinforced and fabric composites. From the results obtained, the delam ination micro-mechanisms are discussed and knowledge of non-destructiv e inspection with a SAM has been obtained.