6th European Workshop on

Structural Health Monitoring - Th.2.A.2

Analysis of Nonlinear Vibro-Acoustic Wave

Modulations Used for Impact Damage
Detection in Composite Structures
L. PIECZONKA1, W. J. STASZEWSKI1, F. AYMERICH2
and T. UHL1

ABSTRACT
Composite materials have been widely used in many advanced engineering
structures. High specific strength, light weight, resistance to fatigue/corrosion and
flexibility in design displayed by these materials have benefited many industries
especially in the transportation area. Despite of all these benefits the susceptibility of
composite materials to incur impact damage is well known and creates a major
concern related to integrity of many structures.
Many techniques have been developed for impact damage detection in composite
structures over the last few decades. Recent years have shown interest in nonlinear
vibration and acoustic phenomena for damage detection. Various symptoms related to
nonlinear effects have been investigated. This includes timedomain signal
distortions, generation of higher harmonics, frequency shifts and signal modulations.
The latter utilize the combined vibro-acoustic interaction of high-frequency ultrasonic
wave and low-frequency vibration excitation. Despite many research efforts, there is
still very little understanding of what physical mechanisms related to these
nonlinearities are.
The paper presents some preliminary results with respect to investigates related to
the effect of low-frequency vibration on nonlinear vibro-acoustic wave modulations.
Finite Element (FE) modeling was used to analyze vibration of the delaminated
composite plate. The simulated data was subsequently analyzed to identify vibration
shapes for two distinct scenarios of delamination behavior, namely the case where its
motion is dominated by: (1) the opening and closing action and (2) by the frictional
sliding. This pretest analysis is an essential step for the experimental testing where the
identified frequencies will be used for low-frequency excitation in nonlinear acoustic
tests.
_____________
Lukasz Pieczonka, Wieslaw J. Staszewski, Tadeusz Uhl - AGH University of Science and
Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, Department of Robotics and
Mechatronics, Al. A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland.
Francesco Aymerich - University of Cagliari, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Piazza
dArmi, 09123 Cagliari, Italy.

Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0

INTRODUCTION
Recent years have shown interest in nonlinear vibration and acoustic phenomena
in many research areas including damage detection [1-4]. However despite many
research efforts, there is still very little understanding of what physical mechanisms
related to these nonlinearities are. Recent studies in this area point to nonlinear
dissipative mechanisms via nonlinear hysteresis [5-6] and/or non-classical phenomena
such as for example the Luxembourg-Gorki effect [7-8]. Previous experimental work
demonstrates that nonlinear phenomena are generally more sensitive to small damage
severities than classical linear approaches [1-8].
Barely Visible Impact Damage (BVID) is of particular concern in aerospace
industries [9]. Reliable methods are needed to detect and monitor BVID evolution. A
number of different methods have been developed for damage detection in composite
structures for the last forty years [9-11]. These include: visual inspection, passive and
active approaches based on ultrasonic signals, liquid penetrant testing, eddy current
based methods, radiographic methods and thermographic methods. The vibro-acoustic
approaches based on nonlinear phenomena are especially well suited for Structural
Health Monitoring applications as they are very sensitive to even small damage
severities and they do not require dense sensor networks.
NONLINEAR VIBRO-ACOUSTIC WAVE MODULATIONS
The method considered in this study is based on a combined vibro-acoustic
modulation of an intensive low-frequency (modal) vibration and weaker highfrequency ultrasonic wave. These two excitations are introduced to the structure
simultaneously (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The principle of vibroacoustic modulation.

When the investigated structure is undamaged the spectrum of the measured

vibration response signal exhibits only the major frequency components: the
propagating acoustical wave and low frequency excitation (Figure 2a). When the
investigated structure is damaged the spectrum of the response signal reveals
additional components higher harmonics and the sidebands around the high
frequency component (Figure 2b). The physical causes of this modulation remain
however poorly understood. The most widely accepted explanation of the modulation
is the contact acoustic nonlinearity (CAN) that is due to the opening-closing action of
a planar defect under low frequency excitation [12-13]. Other studies reveal however
that energy dissipation on the defect not openingclosing crack action is the major

mechanism behind nonlinear modulations [3,8]. It has been shown that vibro-acoustic
modulation can be also used to detect damage in composite structures [14-15].

Figure 2. Frequency spectra of the measured vibration signal for an undamaged specimen (a) and for a
damaged specimen (b).

This study aims at identifying different delamination motion scenarios that will be
subsequently used in future experimental tests. These scenarios include the openingclosing action of the defect and frictional sliding of the defect interfaces. Signal
modulation in nonlinear acoustic test for the former case should be mainly due to the
contact acoustic nonlinearity, while in the latter case due to the energy dissipation on
the defect. Experimental tests for these two scenarios will be performed to verify these
assumptions.
DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST SAMPLE
A rectangular composite plate with [03/903]s ply stacking sequence has been used
as a test case. The dimensions of the plate were 1503002 mm. The plate was cut
from a laminate made up from Seal Texipreg HS160/REM carbon/epoxy prepreg.
The specimen was ultrasonically C-scanned prior to testing to assess the quality of the
laminate and to exclude the presence of manufacturing defects. The in-plane stiffness
properties of the unidirectional prepreg layers (as obtained by tests on 0 and [+45/45]2s coupons) are given in Table 1.
Ex = 93.7 GPa

Ey = 7.45 GPa

Gxy = 3.97 GPa

xy =0.261

Table 1. Mechanical properties of the composite material.

Damage was introduced in the composite plate using a drop-weight impact testing
tower. The panel was simply supported by a steel plate having a rectangular opening
45 mm 67.5 mm in size (with the longer side along the 0 direction) and impacted at
the centre of the opening. The impactor of the drop-weight machine had a mass of 2.3
kg and was equipped with a hemispherical indenter of 12.5 mm in diameter. The 3.9 J
impact energy was obtained by varying the drop height of the impactor. The absorbed
3

energy was evaluated by measuring the velocities of the impactor immediately before
and after the impact; the contact force was measured by means of a semiconductor
strain-gage bridge bonded to the indenter. Ultrasonic C-scan was used to characterize
nature and extent of the internal damage. The calculated area of damage was 326
mm2.
DESCRIPTION OF THE NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS
Numerical model of the plate was prepared in MSC.Patran [16] FE preprocessor.
The model comprised approximately 1 million nodes and 800 thousand hexahedral
solid elements. There were four elements across the thickness of the plate - one solid
element for every three plies with the same orientation in order to properly reproduce
the desired stacking sequence. Average mesh size for the composite plate was 1 mm.
Delamination was modeled as double nodes at the interface between the 90 and the
0 plies farthest from the impact side (Figure 3).
Simulations have been performed using normal modes solution (SOL103) in a
commercial MSC.Nastran FE solver [17].

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the numerical model used for simulations.

RESULTS AND SUMMARY

There were 14 natural frequencies in the range from 0 to 1000 Hz identified from
the numerical solution as listed in Table 2.
Based on the vibration shapes obtained from the analysis the delamination
divergence study has been performed. The indices of relative motion were computed
as a mean value of relative displacement between all the nodes on top and bottom
delamination faces. For out of plane motion only the z coordinate (normal to the plate)
has been considered. For the in plane motion both x and y coordinates have been
considered. The results are presented in Figure 4.

Mode
number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Frequency
[Hz]
74,1
163,5
221,8
304,8
338,5
450,4
459,7

Mode
number
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Frequency
[Hz]
501,6
707,7
838,2
866,4
880,9
924,6
966,9

Table 2. Identified natural frequencies of the damaged plate.

Delamination divergence analysis - out of plane motion

Relative motion [a.u]

0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0

7
8
Mode number

10

11

12

13

14

12

13

14

Relative motion [a.u]

Delamination divergence analysis - in plane motion

0.3
0.2
0.1
0

7
8
Mode number

10

11

Figure 4. Contribution of two distinct delamination behavior scenarios for the first 14 vibration shapes
- the opening and closing action(top) and the frictional sliding (bottom).

a)

b)

Mode 7 459.7 [Hz]

Mode 6 450.4 [Hz]

Mode 12 880.9 [Hz]

Mode 9 707.7 [Hz]

Figure 5. Identified mode shapes resulting in the opening and closing action (column a) and for the
frictional sliding (column b).

The results show that in the considered frequency range there are modes where the
opening-closing action of the delamination dominates and there are modes where in
plane motion dominates. Examples of the dominant modes that could be selected for
experimental nonlinear acoustic testing are presented in Figure 5. For the openingclosing action these are modes 7 and 12 and for the in-plane motion action these are
modes 6 and 9.
CONCLUSIONS
Numerical simulations have been performed to investigate possible modal
excitation frequencies for future nonlinear vibro-acoustic wave modulation test used
to detect impact damage composites.
Two different delamination motion scenarios have been identified. These are: the
opening-closing action of the delamination which should result in wave modulation
due to contact acoustic nonlinearity and (2) frictional sliding of the defect interfaces
which should cause wave modulations due to dissipative mechanisms. Experimental
campaign is underway to verify that the excitation assumptions for nonlinear vibroacoustic wave modulations are correct.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work presented in this paper was supported by funding from the Foundation
for Polish Science under the research WELCOME project no. Project no. 2010-3/2.
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