Composite Process and Health Monitoring

Piezo sensor, electro-mechanical impedance, guided ultrasonic waves

The concept of „Damage Tolerant Design“ has been successfully implemented in the aerospace industry since several decades. This concept is based on the idea that a certain amount of defects can be tolerated in a structural component, before it has to be repaired or exchanged. To guaranty the structural integrity continuous non-destructive inspections have do been done. In addition, the number of structural components made of CFRP has been increased strongly, but their potential has not been exhausted due to uncertainties in the production process and the prediction of the residual life. If such a non-destructive inspection system could be permanently applied to structures and operated online (Structural Health Monitoring), especially in composites, a strong reduction in the down time, costs of maintenance and reduction in weight could be expected. Besides the monitoring of the usage, process monitoring of automated composite production processes became important. Therefore, concepts for integrated process- and structural health monitoring are required. AAC is developing methods and sensors for process simulation and monitoring as well as concepts and algorithms for the off- and online damage detection and quantification for composite structures based on passive and active ultrasonic methods like Acoustic Emission, Guided Ultrasonic Waves together with local strain approaches measured by distributed fibre optic sensors.

List of Process and Structural Health Monitoring Research Projects

AAC has been involved in R&D of Process and Structural Health Monitoring since 2010 and has successfully participated in more than 5 national and European projects, involving part manufacturers (FACC), mold manufacturers (ALPEX) and aircraft manufacturers (Airbus):

2011 FFG: ASHMOSD-II: “Austrian Structural Health Monitoring System Demonstrator-II”
2011: EU CleanSky: FOS3D: Fiber Optic Sensor for Deflection and Damage Detection
2013 FFG: SPARTA: Spantfertigung im RTM Verfahren für Luftfahrt Anwendungen
2016 FFG: Addi@tive Tooling: Additive Fertigung Innovativer Toolings zur Herstellung Intelligenter Faserverbundbauteile
2017 FFG: Evolution#4: Entwicklung einer vollautomatisierten Luftfahrt-Fertigungstechnologie für Intergrale, one-shot, netshape Strukturbauteile für die Industrie 4.0

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