Composite Structures 75 (2006) 313320 www.elsevier.

com/locate/compstruct

Damage detection in T-joint composite structures

A. Kesavan a, M. Deivasigamani a, S. John
a b

a,*

, I. Herszberg

School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Vic. 3001, Australia Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures (CRC-ACS), 506 Lorimer Street, Fishermans Bend, Vic. 3207, Australia Available online 30 May 2006

Abstract The use of composite structures in engineering applications has proliferated over the past few decades. This is mainly due to their distinct advantages of high structural performance, high corrosion resistance, and high strength/weight ratio. They are however prone to bre breakage, matrix cracking and delaminations which are often invisible. Although there are systems to detect such damage, the characterisation of the damage is often much more dicult to achieve. A study is presented of the strain distribution of a GFRP T-joint structure under tensile pull-out loads and the determination of the presence and the extent of disbonds. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been conducted by placing delaminations of dierent sizes at various locations along the structure. The FEA results are also validated experimentally. The resulting strain distribution from the FEA is pre-processed by a method developed called the damage relativity assessment technique (DRAT). Articial neural networks (ANNs) were used to determine the extent of damage. A real-time system has been developed which detects the presence, location and extent of damage from the longitudinal strains obtained from a set of sensors placed on the surface of the structure. The system developed is also independent of the magnitude of load acting on the structure. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Structural health monitoring; Damage detection; Delamination; Articial neural networks; Composite structures; DRAT

1. Introduction Glass bre reinforced plastic (GFRP) laminates are widely used as structural materials due to their high strength to weight ratio and corrosion resistance. In military applications, composite structures [1] also help to minimize electromagnetic radar signature for stealth operation. The mode of failure [2] of GFRP under static or dynamic loadings could be mainly due to matrix cracking or delaminations. Delamination, being the more severe of the two, causes stiness reduction and often leads to the catastrophic failure of the structure. Moreover, the detection of delamination is important to evaluate the reliability of GFRP laminates. Even invisible delaminations can severely degrade the mechanical properties and the load carrying capability of the structure. Damage initiates during service

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 99256007; fax: +61 3 99256003. E-mail address: sabu.john@rmit.edu.au (S. John).

due to operational loading, aging, chemical attack, mechanical vibration and shocks. Existing techniques, such as X-ray ultrasonic C-scan, and laser shearography [3] have been applied to detect these damages. However, it takes much time to inspect the delamination of GFRP laminate structures by these techniques, therefore, online detection of the damages in these composite structures is desired [4,5]. This paper deals with a real-time [6,7] structural health monitoring system capable of determining the presence, location and the extent of damage in a composite structure. The structure considered in this study is a GFRP T-joint. Finite element (FE) models of T-joints were created with delaminations along the bond-line, after they were found to corroborate with experimental results. Strain variation at critical points (along the surface) of the structure was used as the input parameters of the real-time system. The system created pre-processes these strain variations across the structure using a method called the damage relativity analysis technique (DRAT). This preprocessed strain signature is then fed into a trained

0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2006.04.047

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articial neural network [8] which then determines the presence, location and extent of the delamination. 2. Experimental set-up T-joint specimens were manufactured in RMITs composites laboratory. These T-joints were fabricated with delaminations embedded within them. Fig. 1 illustrates a manufactured T-joint before being cut into 50 mm thick specimens. The T-joints manufactured comprised of four sections namely: hull, bulk head, ller and over laminates. The hull and the bulk head are fabricated using vacuum bag resin infusion method, the over-laminates using hand lay-up and the ller section was formed using a mould. A thin layer of Telfon impregnated glass lm ($60 lm) was used to simulate the delamination. The delaminations were impregnated at dierent locations (along the bond-line) namely: horizontal, vertical, beneath the ller and beneath the slanted region. Three sizes 30, 60 or 90 mm delaminations were impregnated. Strain gauges were attached to the surface of the structure, vertically above the crack tips as shown in Fig. 2. The T-joint structure embedded with a delamination was then loaded in a tensile testing machine as shown in Fig. 3. The load was increased in steps of 0.5 kN up to a maximum of 5 kN and nally loaded to failure. The strains emanating from the strain gauges were then tabulated and analysed. 3. Finite element modelling A two-dimensional shell element model of the T-joint was created in MSC/Patran. The T-joint geometric model was divided into seventeen surfaces for the ease of dening

its properties and also meshing. These surfaces were assigned appropriate properties of bres depending on the manufacturing technique. Local co-ordinate systems were created for dening the warp and waft directions of the bre. 3.1. Mesh and gap creation Isomesh and Paver were used with four node quadratic elements (Quad4) to mesh all the surfaces of the model. The element size used was 2 mm, but near the crack tips the element size was reduced to 0.5 mm in order to obtain a ne mesh. In this study two dimensional shell elements were used to dene the material properties and also to dene the thickness (in the Z-direction) of the structure. The shell elements were given a thickness of 50 mm which was the thickness of the manufactured T-joint. Gaps of 0.01 mm thickness were incorporated between the surfaces to represent delaminations, utilising gap elements. 3.2. Constraints and loading The constraints and loading pattern used in the experiments were replicated in the F.E model. The number of degrees of freedom at the constraints and the angle of loading play vital role in the level of accuracy between experimental results and computational results. The load is applied vertically at an angle of 0.55 to the positive Y-axis (anticlockwise). The application of this oset produced better agreement between the model and experimental results, particularly in the bulkhead. It is possible that the discrepancy was due to a slight misalignment in the specimen manufactured or in its supports. The load applied was

Fig. 1. T-joint manufactured at RMIT, embedded with articial delaminations of varying size and location.

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Fig. 2. Location of sensors on the surface of a T-joint (embedded with a 90 mm delamination) loaded to failure.

tions nor rotations in the X- and Y-directions. The L.H.S constraint is placed at a distance of 120 mm from the left edge and the R.H.S constraint is placed at a distance of 126128 mm from the right edge, depending on actual positions of the constraints. 4. Substantiation of computation with experimental results Once the FE models embedded with delaminations (30, 60 and 90 mm) were created, they were post-processed using MSC/Nastran, with strain tensor as the output parameter. The strains corresponding to the strain gauge positions were then tabulated and compared with the experimental results. Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows a comparison between the experimental and computational strain variation for a T-joint under the inuence of a tensile load increasing in steps of 500 N up to 5000 N (a) Embedded with a 30 mm vertical delamination, (b) Embedded with a 60 mm horizontal damage. The strain variation for vertical loads and loads applied at an oset of 0.55 to the Y-axis is also shown. It is clear from Fig. 4(a) and (b) that a good correlation was obtained between the experimental and computational results. This facilitated the use of the FE model for further work.
Fig. 3. T-joint specimen subjected to vertical loading in a tensile testing machine.

5. Articial neural network Articial neural networks (ANN) [8,9] are large parallel distributed processors made up of simple processing units, called neurons, which have a multiple interconnection paths. A subset of these neurons is associated with input data and a second set associated with output data. The system has the ability to store knowledge acquired from the environment through a learning process called training. The acquired knowledge is stored in connections between

distributed along all the nodes in the upper edge of the bulk head, in order to simulate the experimental loading condition. The model was constrained at two points. The left hand side (L.H.S.) constraint does not permit translation in the X-, Y- and Z-directions nor rotations in the X- and Y-directions. The right hand side (R.H.S.) constraint does not permit translation in the Y- and Z-direc-

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Load vs Strain for a T-joint
6000 5000 4000

Load
0.55 Offset

Embedded with a 30mm Vertical Delamination

Load (N)

S2 Delamination S1
Experimental strain at S1 Computational strain at S1 loaded vertically Computational strain at S1 loaded at an offset Experimental strain at S2 Computational strain at S2 loaded verically Computational strain at S2 loaded at an offset

3000 2000 1000 0 -10 90 190 290 390

490

590

690

(a)

Microstrain
Load

Load vs Strain for a T-joint

6000 5000

0.55 Offset

Embedded with a 60mm Horizontal Delamination

S1
4000

S2
Experimental strain at S1 Computaional strain at S1 loaded vertically

Load (N)

3000 2000 1000 0 0 100 200 300 400

Delamination

Computaional strain at S1 loaded at an offset Experimental strain at S2 Computaional strain at S2 loaded vertically Computaional strain at S2 loaded at an offset

500

600

700

(b)

Microstrain

Fig. 4. Comparison between the experimental and computational strain variation for a T-joint under the inuence of a tensile load (0.55 to the +ve Y-axis): (a) embedded with a 30 mm vertical delamination and (b) embedded with a 60 mm horizontal delamination.

the neurons, known as synaptic weights. ANNs are therefore system-dependent and if an ANN is to be trained using a model, the accuracy of predictions relies on the delity of the model. ANNs are robust and fault tolerant, and can eectively deal with qualitative, uncertain, and incomplete information, making it highly useful for detecting structural damage. They are powerful in establishing mapping relationships between measurable but in-determinate features of structural damage and their physical parameters. Hence, for the classication and identication of structural damage, the only required task is to train the ANN in advance using a set of known damage features and their corresponding physical parameters. Many types of neural networks are used for various applications, including perceptron networks [9,10] linear networks, multi-layer feed-forward networks, radial-basis networks [10], probabilistic networks [10,11], competitive networks, and self-organizing maps [10]. However, the multi-layer feed-forward network is the one that is most often used for performing functions such as data segmentation, compression and pattern recognition [12].

5.1. Working of a network A multilayer feed-forward network [9] typically consists of a set of sensory neurons that constitute the input layer, one or more hidden layers of neurons, and an output layer of neurons. Each layer has a set of weights and biases. The number of neurons in the rst layer is equal to or less than the number of inputs to the network. The number of neurons in the hidden layer can be varied depending on the complexity of the problem. The number of neurons in the last (output) layer depends on the number of outputs required. For this study, a feed forward back-propagation neural network was used [9]. Such a network learns through a two stage process i.e. the forward pass and the backward pass. In the forward pass, an input vector (damage signature) is applied to the sensory nodes of the input layer and its eect propagates through the network layer by layer. Finally a set of outputs is produced as the actual response of the network. During the forward pass the weights in all forward paths are xed. During the backward pass, on the other hand, the weights are adjusted in accor-

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dance with an error correction rule. An error signal is produced by subtracting the actual response from the target response. This error signal is then propagated through the network. In this process, the weights are adjusted to make the actual response closer to the desired response. The performance function used here was mean square error the average squared error between the network outputs and the target outputs. Properly trained back-propagation networks tend to give reasonable answers when presented

with inputs (damage signatures) that were not part of the training set. This generalisation property makes it possible to train a network on a representative set of input/target (damage signature as input with corresponding damage size and location as target) pairs and get good results without training the network on all possible input/output pairs. Hence, a neural network can be used to learn about the behaviour of an undamaged and damaged structure to identify the incidence, location and extent of any damage

Fig. 5. (a)(h) Various positions of delaminations incorporated in the training set.

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from the patterns obtained from a damage characteristic such as the strain variation or vibration signature of a structure. This makes the articial neural networks very eective for structural damage detection. 5.2. Network architecture optimisation The generalisation power of the ANN reduces drastically if the appropriate number of neurons for every layer is not selected. The number of neurons was optimised using a 3-fold cross validation technique. This technique involves the division of the entire training set into 3 equal parts (A, B, C). The number of neurons in various layers the network is randomly selected. This network is then trained using A and B as the training set and is tested using C, the output obtained is recorded. The process is again repeated using the combinations B and C for training and A for testing and nally C and A for training and B for testing. The number of neurons are varied to obtain the minimum number for which all three trails produced a valid network. 5.3. Training set The F.E. models were created with delaminations located at various positions as shown in Fig. 5. The training set consisted of delaminations of size 10100 mm increasing in steps of 10 mm for each of these congurations. Eight sensors were found to be sucient to detect the presence of these damages. The location of the sensors on the surface of the T-joint model is shown in Fig. 6. The strain outputs from the eight selected nodes were stored into a damage signature database (DSD). This DSD con-

sisted of the raw strain distribution values of various combinations of delamination sizes and locations. The number of rows in the damage signature database depended on the number of sensors used in the system (eight in this case). Each column represented one particular damage case. The DSD after passing through a ltration stage is used as the training set to train the ANN. 6. Damage relativity assessment technique The data obtained from the sensors may be complex and noisy as the structure and sensors operate under dierent loading and environmental conditions. Therefore, intelligent signal processing [13,14] of the sensor data is required. The damage signature vectors from the damage signature database cannot be used directly as it contains unnecessary features which need to be removed. The dierence between the damaged and undamaged signatures is considered and the result factored to account for the magnitude of the load. This ltration process markedly reduces the training time required by the ANN. The situation is far more complex for the damage signature vectors that have been obtained from sensors placed at an oset from the bondline. The unwanted data i.e. noise and other unnecessary features are removed using a ltration program. A Java program is written to deduct the unwanted features from the damage signature. This program also removes the eect of magnitude of loading on the structure. The ltered data is then stored in a database called the processed damage signature database. The processed DSD is directly fed into the ANN for training. The strain variation on the surface (over the L.H.S over-laminate) of an (a) undamaged T-joint specimen (b) 30 mm horizontal damaged T-joint

Fig. 6. Location of the sensors (on the surface) on the F.E model for detecting the presence of delamination.

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Fig. 7. Strain variation along the L.H.S overlaminate of a damaged and undamaged T-joint.

is shown in Fig. 7 from which the ltered damage signature of the T-joint with the 30 mm horizontal delamination, may also be seen. 7. Methodology T-joints were modelled with varying crack sizes and crack locations. The T-joint was subject to a pull-o load of 5 kN. The strain outputs obtained for an 8 sensor conguration, where sensors were placed on the surface, were stored in a damage signature database. This DSD was then pre-processed using the DRAT. A four layer network capa-

ble of predicting the crack location and size was created. This network was optimised using the 3-fold cross validation technique. The optimised network consisted of 8 neurons in the input layer; 8 neurons in the output layer; 7 and 5 neurons respectively, in the two hidden layers. Tan-Sigmoid was the function used for the rst two layers and Log-Sigmoid for the last two. Resilient back-propagation was used as the training algorithm. The performance function used was mean square error. This DSD was then used as the training set for the ANN. A separate T-joint test set was created. This test set consisted of dierent delaminations sizes and locations which were not included in the

Table 1 Comparison of actual and predicted crack sizes and locations on T-joint subjected to loading at an angle of 0.55 to the Y-axis (anticlockwise) S. no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Load 6000 2500 3000 3750 5000 4500 2750 7000 6500 4750 2500 3250 5750 5250 8000 8500 9000 8750 8500 5000 Actual location L.H L.H R.H R.H S.L.B S.L.B S.L.T S.L.T S.R.T S.R.T S.R.B S.R.B L.V L.V L.V R.V R.V R.V R.V R.V Actual size (A) mm 15 19 24 29 33 37 39 42 46 49 51 53 64 69 76 85 94 97 85 85 Predicted location L.H L.H R.H R.H S.L.B S.L.B S.L.T S.L.T S.R.T S.R.T S.R.B S.R.B L.V L.V L.V R.V R.V R.V R.V R.V Predicted size (P) mm 14.8 18.8 23.8 29.6 33.5 37.9 41.4 43.9 44.8 49.1 52.1 51.4 63.4 68.8 76.5 85.4 94.5 97 85.4 85.4 Dierence 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.5 0.9 2.4 1.9 1.2 0.1 1.1 1.6 0.6 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.5 0 0.4 0.4 Percentage error [(A P)/A] * 100 1.3 1.1 0.8 2.1 1.5 2.4 6.2 4.5 2.6 0.2 2.2 3 0.9 0.3 0.7 0.5 0.5 0 0.5 0.5

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training set. The magnitude of the load applied on the test set models were also varied completely. This was done to test the eciency of the DRAT to remove the eect of magnitude of load acting on the structure. 8. Results and discussion The simulated results obtained from the articial neural network with a test set as the input is shown in Table 1, which also lists the actual location and size as well as the simulated location and size of the delamination. From the percentage error levels shown in Table 1, it is clear that the articial neural network predicts the presence, location and size of the delamination with an accuracy of 98.4%. It is also evident from that the magnitude of load does not aect the accuracy of the network predictions, even though the entire training set consisted of models loaded at 5 kN only. This is of course a function of the linearity of the system. 9. Conclusion The study conducted shows that an articial neural network (ANN) can form an ecient tool in detecting the presence, location and extent of damage in a structure. This is due to its unique ability to learn after it has been trained. It has also been shown that 8 sensors placed on the surface of a 700 mm T-joint, is sucient to sense the presence and extent of damage. In actual large scale structures, this sort of localized placement of sensors around known critical zones in structures might prove a viable solution to realtime damage monitoring. The damage relativity analysis technique (DRAT) has also proved to be a vital tool in pre-processing of the damage signatures, and also making the system independent of the magnitude of load. It also helps in reducing the computational eort in ANN training and obviates the need for large-scale sensor monitoring. One of the most signicant outcomes of this study is the fact that the real-time system discussed can be used on any structure across various engineering elds. Currently, a study is being conducted to extend this technique to detect multiple cracks and to remove the dependency of the ANN on the loading conditions. A major aspect of this eort will also include the pseudoautomated assessment of the damage criticality.

Acknowledgements This work was conducted as part of the CRC-ACS research program and was partially supported by the United States Oce of Naval Research and their nancial support is greatfully acknowledged. The authors thank Mr. Terry Rosewarne, Mr. Peter Tkatchyk and Mr. Sebastian Naselli from RMIT and Mr. John Freeman from the CRC-ACS for their assistance in the preparation of specimens and in the experimental study. A. Kesavan thanks the CRCACS for the provision of a postgraduate scholarship. References
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