title: Characterization of Degradation Progressive in Composite Laminates Subjected to Thermal Fatigue and Moisture Diffusion by Lamb Waves.
abstract: Laminate composites which are widely used in the aeronautical industry, are usually subjected to frequency variation of environmental temperature and excessive humidity in the in-service environment. The thermal fatigue and moisture absorption in composites may induce material degradation. There is a demand to investigate the coupling damages mechanism and characterize the degradation evolution of composite laminates for the particular application. In this paper, the degradation evolution in unidirectional carbon/epoxy composite laminates subjected to thermal fatigue and moisture absorption is characterized by Lamb waves. The decrease rate of Lamb wave velocity is used to track the degradation evolution in the specimens. The results show that there are two stages for the progressive degradation of composites under the coupling effect of thermal cyclic loading and moisture diffusion. The present work provides an alternative to monitoring the degradation evolution of in-service aircraft composite Laminates.
authors.affiliation: School of Aerospace Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China. liweibin@xmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Weibin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100041, China. xucg@bit.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Chunguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, Korea. mechcyh@pusan.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Younho
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cho
keywords: Lamb waves; composite laminates; degradation progressive; moisture diffusion; thermal fatigue