Correlations Between Ultrasonic Waveforms and Artificially Implanted Defects in Composite Materials

This paper presents the results of ultrasonic testing, in particular pulse-echo scans and full waveform scans, performed on composite test specimens. Defects, such as backing paper, excess resin, Teflon®, sand, acetone, and Frekote® spray are implanted artificially in samples manufactured from carbon fiber prepregs. Cracks and delaminations are generated by impact and bending tests. The specimens are scanned in order to find correlations between these defects and their displayed images. Finally, the cut specimens are analyzed under the microscope.