Simulation of guided-wave ultrasound propagation in composite laminates: Benchmark comparisons of numerical codes and experiment

Abstract

Ultrasonic wave methods constitute the leading physical mechanism for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) of solid composite materials, such as carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates. Computational models of ultrasonic wave excitation, propagation, and scattering in CFRP composites can be extremely valuable in designing practicable NDE and SHM hardware, software, and methodologies that accomplish the desired accuracy, reliability, efficiency, and coverage. The development and application of ultrasonic simulation approaches for composite materials is an active area of research in the field of NDE. This paper presents comparisons of guided wave simulations for CFRP composites implemented using four different simulation codes: the commercial finite element modeling (FEM) packages ABAQUS, ANSYS, and COMSOL, and a custom code executing the Elastodynamic Finite Integration Technique (EFIT). Benchmark comparisons are made between the simulation tools and both experimental laser Doppler vibrometry data and theoretical dispersion curves. A pristine and a delamination type case (Teflon insert in the experimental specimen) is studied. A summary is given of the accuracy of simulation results and the respective computational performance of the four different simulation tools.

A Deep Learning Framework for Vibration-Based Assessment of Delamination in Smart Composite Laminates

“…From the contemporary research on delamination in laminated composites, it can be found that most of the research efforts are dedicated to the use of higher-frequency guided waves (e.g., Lamb waves), acoustic emission/acoustic ultrasonic, and mode shape curvatures for the detection, quantification, and localization of delamination [43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. This paper proposes a deep learning framework for the assessment of delamination in piezo-bonded laminated composites using low-frequency structural vibration responses.…”

Influence of Location and Thickness Variations on Guided Waves in Defective Carbon/Epoxy Plate

“…Limited publications were found for the analysis using 3D FEM models due to the large computational demand. However, several FE simulation tools have been used in a previous study and found that all of the tools are adequate to simulate the guided waves in composite laminate through 3D FEM [9]. Studies in [10], [11] show that 3D simulations can accurately predict the scattering characteristics of guided waves by using simple rectangular-shaped defects, where both FE and experimental results show comparable results.…”

UQ eSpace

“…The most cost-effective and convenient approach is typically FEM modelling due to several commercially available products such as ANSYS, ABAQUS and Patran [2]. As such, many authors have simulated Lamb waves using FEM in a wide range of studies (see Figure 6) [1,8,10,11,14,19,20,[26][27][28][29]. Su outlined the two main requirements for modelling Lamb waves via FEM; activation of the wave pulse and acquisition of the response [2].…”

“…Leckey et al compared several numerical codes (ABAQUS, ANSYS and COMSOL) in simulating guided ultrasonic waves in composite laminates [26]. In this study a 3-cycle Hanning windowed sine wave was used to actuate the A0 Lamb mode [26].…”

“…Leckey et al compared several numerical codes (ABAQUS, ANSYS and COMSOL) in simulating guided ultrasonic waves in composite laminates [26]. In this study a 3-cycle Hanning windowed sine wave was used to actuate the A0 Lamb mode [26]. The ANSYS Mechanical 14.5 implicit solver was selected, using a Newton-Raphson time integration scheme to solve ( 5 ), with a fixed time-step of 0.1 μs [26].…”