Identification effects of hybrid fibers in composite properties and Acoustic Emission parameters by Fuzzy C- Means

Purpose of this study is to identify effects of hybrid fibers in composites properties which has reinforced by carbon and basalt fibers and also effects of hybrid composite in Acoustic Emission (AE) behavior under four point bending test by non-destructive AE testing. One of the main problems for failure mechanisms identification by AE method is discrimination of events due to different types of damage which occurs during loading of composite material. Fuzzy C- means clustering algorithm is a tool which is used in this paper to separate acoustic events. The results show that the method of clustering provides a better correlation between the acoustic signals, damage mechanisms and also time of these mechanisms. For analyzing the AE signals, some of the descriptors like amplitude, duration, count, acoustic energy and rise time were used to identify the micro mechanisms of failure. In the first steps of the hybrid composite loading, it is noisier than the last steps and it shows the progressive damage mechanisms. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) observation was verified the results of tests and analysis.