Damage Identification Algorithms for Composite Structures

Many nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are available today, but currently lacking is a suite of algorithms to automatically analyze their data. Users are responsible for interpreting the data, which is not only significantly costlier in terms of time and effort but is extremely subjective. TRI/Austin proposes the development of a suit of damage assessment algorithms, designed to read raw NDE/SHM data, analyze it, and provide an assessment of not only the severity but also the location of the damage and also to recommend a course of corrective action. Our efforts will build on our existing software library which already contains several NDE/SHM assessment modules; new modules to detect fiber breakage, delaminations, and other composite damage will be developed and directly plugged in to our NDE/SHM system. In Phase I, we will demonstrate the alpha versions of the algorithms. In Phase II, we further refine the software towards a complete commercial solution for the Air Force.