Experimental investigation of the damage progression in the filament-wound composite by the acoustic emission technique

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study to identify and characterize the different mechanisms of failure in the ±55° filament-wound glass/polyester composite. Acoustic emission (AE) was chosen as an experimental means of expertise. In this context, a relevant tensile test with in situ acoustic emission monitoring were conducted. The studied specimens were manufactured by filament winding. Indeed, first a tube is obtained by winding a mandrel with the desired draping and is then cut along the longitudinal axis to obtain wound test specimens having a small curvature. The discrimination of the different types of possible damage was obtained following the exploitation of the signals performed by the conventional mono-parametric analysis. This method assumes that each burst generated carries a specific signature to a generator mechanism. The amplitude distribution is the descriptor on which is based this study. The efficiency of the employed experimental strategy was confirmed after microscopic observations of specimens through the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).