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Debonds and Water-Filled Defects Detection in Honeycomb Sandwich Composites Based on Pulse Infrared Thermography NDT Technique

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Abstract

Honeycomb sandwich composites (HSCs) have been extensively used in aerospace, automotive and shipbuilding industries due to their light weight, high temperature resistance, high strength and fatigue resistance. In this study, the infrared thermography was used to detect debonds and water-filled defects in HSCs specimens under pulsed thermal stimulation. To improve the efficiency of defects detection, dynamic thermal tomography (DTT), principal component analysis (PCA) and total harmonic distortion (THD) techniques were applied to the raw infrared image sequences. The results show that, in the inspection of HSCs, the defect identification results can be improved by using the image processing techniques mentioned above, while the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be significantly improved by means of the THD technique. It is confirmed that debonds and water-filled defects in the HSCs can reliably be detected and identified by using the technique of pulse infrared thermography nondestructive testing.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author are grateful to Chiwu Bu for the suggestions on the presentation of the manuscript and thankful to the journal editors and reviewers for their helpful suggestions in the major revision.

Funding

This work was supported by regular institutional funding, and no additional grants were obtained.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronautic Science and Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Guozeng Liu, Weicheng Gao, Wei Liu, Xionghui Zou & Jianxun Xu

  2. College of Light Industry, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, China

    Tao Liu

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  1. Guozeng Liu
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  2. Weicheng Gao
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  3. Wei Liu
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  4. Xionghui Zou
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  5. Jianxun Xu
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Correspondence to Weicheng Gao.

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Liu, G., Gao, W., Liu, W. et al. Debonds and Water-Filled Defects Detection in Honeycomb Sandwich Composites Based on Pulse Infrared Thermography NDT Technique. Russ J Nondestruct Test 59, 583–591 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1061830923600089

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1061830923600089

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