Laser Doppler Vibrometer Based Examination of the Efficiency of Introducing Artificial Delaminations into Composite Shells

During its operation, the laminate shell of the watercraft hull can be exposed to local stability losses caused by the appearance and development of delaminations. The sources of these delaminations are discontinuities, created both in the production process and as a result of bumps of foreign bodies into the hull in operation. In the environment of fatigue loads acting on the hull, the delaminations propagate and lead to the loss of load capacity of the hull structure. There is a need to improve diagnostic systems used in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of laminate hull elements to detect and monitor the development of the delaminations. Effective diagnostic systems used for delamination assessment base on expert systems. Along with other tools, the expert diagnostic advisory systems make use of the non-destructive examination method which consists in generating elastic waves in the hull shell structure and observing their changes by comparing the recorded signal with damage patterns collected in the expert system database. This system requires introducing certain patterns to its knowledge base, based on the results of experimental examinations performed on specimens with implemented artificial delaminations. The article presents the results of the examination oriented on assessing the delaminations artificially generated in the structure of glass- and carbon-epoxy laminates by introducing local non-adhesive layers with the aid of thin polyethylene film, teflon insert, or thin layer of polyvinyl alcohol. The efficiency of each method was assessed using laser vibrometry. The effect of the depth of delamination position in the laminate on the efficiency of the applied method is documented as well.