Non-destructive Investigation of Modulated Infrared Thermography in Evaluation of Subsurface Defects in Polymer Matrix Composites

In this paper, an investigation was done on modulated IR thermography for detection and evaluation of artificial subsurface defects in composite materials. In this method, In order to stimulate the test specimen, the heat flux is applied periodically over the surface of the specimen and the thermal response is decomposed by the Fourier transform method in order to extract its amplitude and phase images. The non-uniform backgrounds in the obtained images often reduce detection ability, In order to improve the evaluation of this method, an edge detection filter and a morphological attribute profile were applied to the images. Experimental investigations were applied for different frequencies on specimens made with common controlled defects in composite materials. Interpretation of the results were utilized in the calculation of defects’ size and location, it was observed that in specimen with 2 mm thickness delamination defect with a minimum size of 20*10 mm, dry fiber and inclusion defects with a minimum size of 50*40 mm is detected and is measured. The same geometry and the artificial defects used in experiments, were considered in the finite element analysis. The results of finite element analysis were found to have an agreement with the experimental results and can be used to find the optimum parameters in investigation of modulated IR thermography for detection of defects on composites.