Non-destructive detection of fatigue damage in thick

composites by pulse-echo ultrasonics

A.P. Mouritz*, C. Townsend, M.Z. Shah Khan
Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Aeronautical and Maritime Research Laboratory,
PO Box 4331, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3001
Received 14 December 1998; received in revised form 29 June 1999; accepted 22 July 1999
Abstract
The non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of fatigue damage in thick polymer composites used in large ships is examined by the use
of low-frequency pulse-echo ultrasonics. The initiation and growth of fatigue-induced damage was monitored with ultrasonics
during cyclic exural loading of glass-bre-reinforced polymer (GRP) composites between 7 mm and 38 mm thick. Fatigue loading
the GRP to high stresses (above 50% of the static failure stress) induced extensive damage that consisted of debonding of the surface
glass bre tows together with a complex array of cracks and delaminations within the composite, and this damage was easily detected
by means of ultrasonics. Cyclic loading the composite to relatively low fatigue stresses (below 50% of the failure stress) caused much
less damage. Short cracks developed within the resin-rich regions between the glass bre plies and within the bres tows, and this
damage was just detectable by using ultrasonics. The cracks induced by low-stress fatigue were dicult to detect because they mostly
grew parallel to the transmission path of the ultrasound waves. The ability to detect damage induced by either low or high fatigue
stresses improved with increasing thickness of the GRP. The implications from this study for the NDE of fatigue-induced damage in
thick composite ships by the use of pulse-echo ultrasonics is discussed. #2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: A. Polymer-matrix composites; B. Fatigue; D. Non-destructive testing; D. Ultrasonics
1. Introduction
Glass-bre-reinforced polymer (GRP) composites are
often used in maritime vessels such as yachts, lifeboats,
shing trawlers, patrol boats and naval minehunting
ships [1]. The appeal of GRP composites over more
traditional maritime construction materials (such as
steel and aluminium alloy) is their light-weight, good
fatigue performance, excellent corrosion resistance in
sea-water, and low through-life maintenance costs.
However, GRP composites generally have low stiness
which means that large composite ships must have hulls
much thicker than those in metallic ships. The hull
thickness is typically a few millimeters for small sail-
boats, between 5 and 10 mm for shing trawlers and
patrol boats, and above 20 mm for naval ships. One
example of an extremely thick composite ship is the Gatea
minehunter, which is operated by the Italian, United
States, Malaysian, Nigerian and Australian navies (Fig.
1). The superstructure of the minehunter varies in thick-
ness between 6 and 20 mm while the thickness of the hull
varies from about 50 to over 200 mm.
Ships made out of composite material are expected to
operate for 2050 years without any major structural
rets. As a result, their endurance and safety is depen-
dent on the long-term fatigue performance of the GRP.
The fatigue resistance of GRP composites used in ships
is generally good, although fatigue damage can develop
in highly stressed regions by the repeated action of
waves slamming against the hull and by the hogging-
sagging bending motion along the vessel in heavy seas.
This motion can pose a serious safety problem because
most fatigue failures on composite ships do not usually
display early signs of visible damage. Therefore, it is
important for ship operators to undertake regular non-
destructive inspections for fatigue damage.
A range of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techni-
ques can be used on GRP composites, including tap
testing, mechanical impedance, thermography, laser
shearogaphy, and X-ray radiography [25]. However,
0266-3538/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PI I : S0266- 3538( 99) 00094- 9
Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-396268276; fax: +61-
396268999.
E-mail address: adrian.mouritz@dsto.defence.gov.au (A.P. Mouritz).
very few techniques are suitable for inspecting ships at
sea or in a dockyard, and arguably the most popular is
pulse-echo ultrasonics. The popularity of pulse-echo
ultrasonics is due to a number of practical features of
the technique, such as its safety and reliability, access to
only one side of a ship structure (e.g. bulkhead, deck) is
needed to make an inspection, and the ultrasonic
instrumentation is portable.
Despite these advantages, the ultrasonics method is
normally only applied to detect fatigue damage in car-
bon-bre-reinforced epoxy (CFRP) composites used in
aircraft structures that are less than several millimetres
thick. Because aircraft composites are much thinner
than the GRP used in ships they are usually easier to
inspect using ultrasonics. Williams and Doll [6], Shoup
et al. [7], and Schuster and Friedrich [8] were unable to
detect fatigue damage in thin CFRP composites with
through-transmission ultrasonics. Under certain fatigue
conditions, however, Williams et al. [9], Bader and
Boniface [10], Kellas et al. [11], Nayeb-Hashemi et al.
[12], and Scarponi and Briotti [13] all successfully
detected the initiation and spread of fatigue cracks in
CFRP composites with through-transmission ultra-
sonics. This technique was able to detect small delami-
nation cracks induced by fatigue loading, but only when
the cracks grew in the direction transverse to the trans-
mission path of the ultrasound waves. Other types of
fatigue damage were more dicult to detect, such as
bre splitting [11] or cracks parallel to the transmission
path of the ultrasound waves [10]. It is worth noting
that Kasap et al. [14] and Forsyth et al. [15] were able to
detect by ultrasonics the debonding of bres from the
resin matrix as well as resin cracks in composites fati-
gued by thermal cycling rather than stress cycling.
While certain types of fatigue damage (e.g. delamina-
tions, bre debonding) can be detected in aerospace
composites that are less than several millimetres thick by
the use of through-transmission ultrasonics, little is
known about the detection of fatigue damage in much
thicker GRP composites with pulse-echo ultrasonics.
Tsushima and Ono [16] recently reported that with the
use of pulse-echo ultrasonics it was possible to monitor
the initiation and growth of damage in marine-grade
GRP composites generated by zero-to-tension fatigue
loading. The composites were between 4.5 and 5.8 mm
thick, which is about the hull thickness in racing yachts
and small boats. Tsushima and Ono [16] monitored a
steady increase in the attenuation of the ultrasonic signal
with the number of fatigue cycles due to an increasing
number of fatigue cracks being initiated within the resin
matrix. Apart from this work, there have been no pub-
lished studies of the NDE of fatigue induced damage in
thick composites by the use of pulse-echo ultrasonics.
The aim of this paper is to determine the use of pulse-
echo ultrasonics for detecting the initiation and growth of
fatigue induced damage in thick GRP composite. The
composite was similar to that used in many large compo-
site ships, and was the same as that used in the hull of the
Gatea minehunter. The GRP composite, which varied in
thickness from7 to 38 mm, was fatigue tested over a range
of exural stress levels under four-point-bend cyclic load-
ing. The exural fatigue loading was used to induce
damage similar to the fatigue damage that can occur in
composite ships by the repeated action of waves slamming
against the hull or by the hogging-sagging bending motion
along the vessel. The research ndings will be used to
determine whether ultrasonics is a useful NDE technique
for the detection of fatigue induced damage in the Gatea
minehunter, which in this paper is taken as a typical
example of an extremely thick composite ship.
2. Materials and experimental techniques
2.1. Materials
The GRP composite was made from E-glass woven
fabric and an isophthalic polyester resin. The fabric
(known commercially as DF1400 Woven Roving) was
woven by Colan Industries with plain roving tows in the
warp direction and spun roving tows in the weft direc-
tion. The fractions of glass in the warp and weft direc-
tions was 0.36 and 0.64, respectively, and the areal
density of the fabric was 1.35 kg/m
2
. The composite was
Fig. 1. HMASHuonoperated by the Royal AustralianNavy. This ship is
similar to the Gatea minehunter, and is made fromthick GRP composite.
24 A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332
laminated by wet hand lay-up, which is the process most
often used in ship construction, and the resin matrix
was cold-cured under ambient conditions (20

C, 55%
relative humidity). The resin and void contents of the
cured composite were 43.41.2% and 3%, respec-
tively, which are typical values for a marine-grade com-
posite. Composite specimens were laminated into long
slender beams with average thicknesses of 7, 16, 27 or 38
mm for fatigue testing, and with the warp bres aligned
along the beams. It is important to note that the glass
fabric had an unusually coarse weave that caused the
composite surface to be rough. The peak-to-valley
height of the surface contours was typically about 1.5
mm.
A second type of composite specimen was used to
determine the minimum delamination size that can be
detected in thick GRP composite using ultrasonics.
These specimens were made containing a series of steps,
where the thickness of the steps increased in increments
of about 25 mm from 25 mm up to maximum of 150
mm, as shown in Fig. 2. During lamination of these
specimens, a single rectangular strip of 0.1 mm thick
Teon lm was inserted between two plies about 10 mm
from the bottom to articially replicate a thin delami-
nation buried at increasing depths beneath the surface
of the steps. Specimens were made containing either a 2,
5, 10, 25, 50 or 150 mm wide strip of the lm that ran
the length of the block.
2.2. Fatigue testing
Fig. 3 illustrates the layout of the four-point exural
test used to fatigue the composite beams. The specimen
dimensions together with the load span (S) and support
span (L) lengths are given in Table 1. These values were
used in accordance to ASTM D790M [17] for the static
exural testing of polymer composites under quarter-
point loading at a support span-to-thickness ratio of 32-
to-1. The only deviation from the ASTM standard was
that the specimens were 40 mm wide, rather than being
the recommended width of 25 mm. Wider specimens
were needed to allow adequate area for the ultrasonic
probe (which has a diameter of 25 mm). The specimens
were fatigued in displacement control with a sine wave
load prole at a frequency of 0.1 Hz. This lowfrequency
was used to ensure the fatigue machine had adequate
time to reach the maximum displacement (which in some
tests exceeded 30 mm). As a consequence it was not
practical to fatigue the specimens to failure, which in
some tests would exceed 1,000,000 cycles, and therefore
the tests were terminated at 20,000 cycles.
Fig. 2. (a) Dimensions and (b) ultrasonic inspection of a GRP step-
shaped specimen containing an articial delamination created by
Teon lm. The lm extended along the entire length of the specimen.
Fig. 3. Diagrams of the four-point exural fatigue test when the speci-
men was ultrasonically inspectedin the (a) unloaded and (b) loaded states.
Table 1
Specimen dimensions, load spans and support spans used in the ex-
ural fatigue testing
Specimen
thickness
(mm)
Specimen
length
(mm)
Load
span
(S) (mm)
Support
span
(L) (mm)
8 307 128 256
16 710 260 520
27 1040 423 846
38 1440 550 1100
A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332 25
2.3. Ultrasonic testing
The step-shaped and fatigue specimens were inspected
using a Krautkra mer-Branson USD15 (Version 4.00.02)
ultrasonic dialog aw detector and a Panametrics 0.5
MHz transducer probe with a 25 mm diameter (which are
shown in Fig. 2b). A 10 mm thick rubber block was
attached to the probe surface to provide better impedance
matching with the composite and to provide a time delay
to ensure the pulse-echo signal was not masked by the
initial pulse signal. The ultrasonic instrumentation was
operated at a capacitance of 2 000 pF and damping of 500
in the time-of-ight mode. The average speed of sound
for longitudinal waves through the GRP was measured at
nearly 3 000 ms
1
, but this speed varied by 5% pre-
sumably due to variations in the glass and void contents.
The A-scan records were transferred from the ultrasonic
unit to a computer using Krautkra mer ULTRADOC
software to keep a permanent record of the measurements.
The fatigue tests were interrupted at regular intervals
to monitor the development and growth of damage. Fig.
3 shows the location where the ultrasonic probe was
placed on the specimen during fatigue testing. Two types
of ultrasonic inspections were performed: (1) all of the
specimens were inspected in the unloaded condition (Fig.
3a) and (2) the 16, 27 and 38 mm thick specimens were
also inspected while held at the peak fatigue stress (Fig.
3b). Inspections were performed while the specimens
were loaded because it is expected that any fatigue cracks
will open, and thereby make them more detectable.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Detection of low-stress fatigue damage
The growth of fatigue damage in the GRP composite
was monitored during the fatigue test by an increase in
gain of the ultrasound signal using A-scan records.
Examples of A-scans for a 16 mm thick specimen taken
at the start, near the middle, and at the end of a fatigue
test are shown in Fig. 4. The A-scans are characterised
by a cluster of three large peaks at a depth of about 15
to 18 mm, and these signify the reection of ultrasound
waves from the back-surface of the specimen
1
. Fig. 4
shows that at the start of this fatigue test the amount of
gain needed to bring the pulse-echo signal to 80% full-
screen height was 63 dB (Fig. 4a), and this rose to 65 dB
after 11,600 cycles (Fig.4b), and reached 67.5 dB after
20,000 cycles (Fig. 4c). The A-scan records were usually
consistent when taken at dierent locations along the
specimen between the two load points, with the scatter
in the gain values rarely exceeding 1 dB.
The change in gain with number of load cycles for the
16 mm thick GRP tested at a relatively low normalised
Fig. 4. A-scans of a 16 mm thick specimen tested at a low normalised
fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:36) for (a) 0, (b) 11,600 and (c) 20,000 cycles.
The gain level to bring the peak to 80% of full-scale height is shown in
the top right corner of the A-scans.
1
The reection of ultrasound waves in a polymer composite is
usually observed in an A-scan as a single peak rather than a cluster of
peaks. However, the rough back surface of the GFRP, with a average
peak-to-valley height of 1.5 mm, caused dierences in the time-of-
ight of the ultrasound waves when reected fromthe peaks and valleys
at the back-surface of the specimen resulting in multiple pulse-echo
signals in the A-scans.
26 A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332
fatigue stress (
f
=
0
=0.36) is shown in Fig. 5. In this
study the normalised fatigue stress is dened as the
maximum exural fatigue stress in the outer layers of
the laminate (
f
) divided by the maximum exural
strength of the outer layers of the composite (
0
), which
is 230 MPa. In this gure the gain was measured when
the specimen was unloaded and when held at the peak
fatigue stress. The gain increased slightly with the rst
10005000 cycles and then remained reasonably con-
stant for the unloaded condition and increased gradu-
ally for the loaded condition over the remainder of the
fatigue test. These trends were observed for GRP speci-
mens with the four dierent thicknesses when tested at
any normalised fatigue stress below 0.5. It was found,
however, that the increase in gain caused by fatigue was
dependent on the thickness of the GRP composite. For
example, Fig. 6 shows that after testing at
f
=
0
=0.36
for 20,000 cycles there is a general increase in gain with
thickness. This indicates that fatigue damage can be
more easily detected in thicker composites, and when
the composites are under load.
After being tested for 20,000 cycles at normalised
fatigue stresses (
f
=
0
) below 0.5, the GRP composite
was examined using scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) to identify the damage responsible for the small
increase in gain. The only fatigue damage observed was
a low density of short cracks that grew in the through-
thickness direction (ie. normal to the surface). These
cracks grew in the same direction as the transmission
path of the ultrasound waves, as shown in Fig. 7. These
cracks only occurred towards the back surface of the
Fig. 5. Eect of number of cycles on the increase in gain for a 16 mm thick specimen tested at a low normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:36).
Fig. 6. Eect of thickness on the change in gain after the composite
was tested at a low normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:36) for 20,000
cycles. The gain values shown are an average of the values measured
over the course of the fatigue tests. The error bars represent one stan-
dard deviation.
A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332 27
specimen, which was subject to a tensile stress under
exural loading. Other studies [10] have shown it is not
possible to detect fatigue cracks that run parallel to the
transmission direction of ultrasound waves. Therefore
these cracks in the GRP would not be expected to
increase the gain. However, some cracks grew from the
resin-rich regions between the plies into breglass tows
where they were forced to weave a tortuous path around
the bres. As the cracks weaved around individual bres
they were deected from the through-thickness direction
for short distances (typically less than 50 mm). These are
the only regions along the crack length that intersect the
ultrasound wave path, and could be the cause for the slight
increase in gain.
3.2. Detection of high-stress fatigue damage
Raising the normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
) above 0.5
resulted in more substantial changes to the gain level
than reported earlier. For example, Fig. 8 shows A-
scans for a 16 mm thick composite fatigued at

f
=
0
=0.72 for 0, 9000 and 20,000 cycles. The gain
increased from 65 dB (Fig. 8a) to 81 dB (Fig. 8b) after
the rst 9000 cycles, but further testing to 20,000 cycles
caused the gain to decline to 75.5 dB (Fig. 8c). This
decline in gain was accompanied by a shift in the depth at
which the ultrasonic signal is reected from 16 to 15
mm. The eect of the number of fatigue cycles on the gain
level for this specimen is shown more clearly in Fig. 9. The
gain initially increased rapidly until 9000 cycles, but then
further fatigue loading caused a reduction in gain fromthe
peak value. This trend was observed whenever the com-
posite was tested at a normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
)
above 0.5.
Examination of the composite using SEM revealed
after testing at normalised fatigue stresses (
f
=
0
) above
0.5 the fatigue damage was much more extensive and
complex than the damage that occurred when

f
=
0
< 0:5. Soon after the start of the fatigue test the
warp tows along the top surface partially debonded
from the underlying composite because of the high
compressive stress generated in the outer layers by ex-
ural loading. The tows debonded in short segments
Fig. 7. Low-stress fatigue cracking in the GRP tested at a low normal-
ised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:36) for 20,000 cycles. The arrow shows the
transmission direction of the ultrasound waves.
Fig. 8. A-scans for a 16 mm thick specimen tested at a high normalised
fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:72) for (a) 0, (b) 9000 and (c) 20,000 cycles.
28 A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332
between the warp/weft tow cross-over points, and the
surface density of these failures increased steadily over
the duration of the fatigue test. This damage is expected
to have contributed to the steady rise in the gain during
the rst 9000 cycles of the test because the ultrasound
waves would be scattered at the debonds. In addition to
this damage, the composite contained a high density of
cracks that extended in the through-thickness direction,
and these were similar to the crack shown in Fig. 7. A
high number of through-thickness cracks were forced to
weave between the bres within the tows, and this
would have contributed to the increase in gain. Cracks
also grew in directions other than the through-thickness
direction, as shown in Fig. 10a, and these would cause a
greater attenuation of the ultrasound waves than the
cracks that grew in the through-thickness direction.
Where many of the resin cracks intersected a warp bre
tow, they grew along the tow/matrix interface to create
a small delamination that resulted in yet further increa-
ses in the gain level of the ultrasound signal (Fig. 10b).
Delaminations were observed to grow in length during
the fatigue test, and after 9100 cycles caused the back
surface ply to detach from the tensile-side of specimen.
This ply detachment is observed in the A-scans (Fig. 8)
Fig. 10. High stress fatigue damage in the GRP tested at a high normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:72). The arrow shows the transmission direction
of the ultrasound waves.
Fig. 9. Eect of number of cycles on the increase in gain for a 16 mm thick specimen tested at a high normalised fatigue stress (
f
=
0
0:72).
A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332 29
by a reduction in the apparent thickness of 12 mm after
9000 cycles. The gain level falls from the peak value at
9000 cycles because the ply detachment has reduced the
beam-path length that reduces the attenuation.
Fig. 11 shows the eect of normalised fatigue stress
on the gain after 20,000 cycles. In this gure a compar-
ison is made between the gain values for unloaded and
loaded specimens. The gain values were on average 12
dB higher when the fatigued composite was inspected
under load. The curves show two fatigue regimes:
. At low normalised stresses (
f
=
0
< 0:5) the gain
rises slowly due to a gradual increase in the num-
ber of fatigue cracks that are parallel to the trans-
mission path of the ultrasound waves. It is only
when the cracks are forced to weave between the
bres that some scattering of the ultrasound waves
is likely to occur (Fig. 7).
. At high normalised stresses (
f
=
0
> 0:5) the gain
rises more rapidly because of the increasing num-
ber and length of debonded surface tows, cracks,
and short delaminations (Fig. 10). However, the
delaminations cause a slight reduction in the peak
gain level when they grow large enough to cause
ply debonding.
3.3. Detection of fatigue damage in composite ships
The detection of fatigue damage in the thick GRP
specimens using pulse-echo ultrasonics indicates that
this method may be useful in the inspection of compo-
site ships for fatigue cracks. However, large ships such
as the Gatea minehunters are between 160 and 200
mm thick along the keel, which is much thicker than the
fatigue specimens studied here. While it was found that
the detection of fatigue damage using pulse-echo ultra-
sonics improved with the thickness of the GRP up to 38
mm (Fig. 6), this does not prove that fatigue damage
can be detected in the thickest regions in the mine-
hunter. This can only be proven by ultrasonically
inspecting 200 mm thick composite specimens con-
taining fatigue damage. It was not possible to fatigue
200 mm thick specimens using the four-point test
equipment because of the need for an extremely long
load span (3.2 m) and support span (6.4 m).
One technique to determine whether high stress fati-
gue damage in extremely thick composites can be
detected using pulse-echo ultrasonics was to inspect for
delaminations buried deep within the step-shaped spe-
cimens. These delaminations, which were articially
created by Teon lm, were similar to those formed by
Fig. 11. Eect of normalised fatigue stress on the increase in gain after 20,000 cycles. The gain was measured when the specimens were (a) unloaded
and (b) loaded at the peak fatigue stress.
30 A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332
high stress fatigue. (It was not possible, however, to
fabricate these specimens containing other types of fati-
gue damage, namely the low stress and high stress resin
cracks shown in Figs. 7 & 10a, respectively.) The ability
to detect a delamination buried at increasing depths
below the surface using the ultrasonics method is shown
in Fig. 12. In this gure the open points represent where
a delamination can not be detected whereas the closed
points signify where the delamination is detectable. The
minimum delamination size that can be detected
increased gradually the deeper it was buried beneath the
surface. This gure indicates that delaminations caused
by high stress fatigue which grow larger than about 10
mm may possibly be detectable in the minehunter hull. It
is important to note, however, that the minimum detect-
able size will be determined by a number of factors that
were not investigated in this study, such as the delami-
nation shape and the presence of other types of fatigue
induced damage (e.g. resin cracks, tow debonding).
A problem commonly encountered during the ultra-
sonic inspection of thick composite structures, such as
minehunter ships, is that their ultrasound properties
vary due to variations in resin and void contents. Smith
[1] reports that the amount of woven breglass used in
marine vessels usually varies from 45 to 55% while the
porosity varies between 2 and 5%. The variation in
ultrasound attenuation that can occur in thick GRP
composites was demonstrated by Mouritz and Town-
send [18] during the NDE of three new Gatea-type
minehunters built for the Royal Australian Navy. The
minehunters were built from the same GRP composite
as the fatigue and step-block specimens used in this
study. Fig. 13 shows gain values measured by Mouritz
and Townsend [18] at dierent locations through the
minehunters where the thickness ranged from 6 to 220
mm. The amount of gain increased rapidly with the
thickness of the composite. It is important to note,
however, that for any thickness above 40 mm the
scatter in the gain values is between 5 and 12 dB. This
suggests it would not be possible to detect damage in the
minehunter induced by lowstress fatigue (i.e.
f
=
0
< 0:5)
because any increase in gain caused by fatigue (<3 dB)
would be masked by the large scatter in the values for the
GRP. It would also be dicult to detect damage induced
by high fatigue stress in the minehunter until the normal-
ised fatigue stress exceeded 0.7, at which point the gain
has risen by more than 12 dB. Nevertheless, delaminations
produced by fatigue loading at
f
=
0
values between 0.5
and 0.7 may possibly be detected provided they are longer
than 10 mm. These observations demonstrate the di-
culty that can be expected during the NDE of a thick
composite ship when using pulse-echo ultrasonics. The
detection of fatigue damage may be improved by using A-
scan ultrasonics in combination with other NDE techni-
ques such as Lamb waves, angle-probe ultrasonics, and
laser shearography.
Fig. 12. Map of the eect of depth on the minimum detectable delamination size. The lled points represent the detection of the delamination while
the open points signify when the delamination could not be detected. The solid line shows the boundary between detectable and undetectable dela-
minations. This map is for square-shape articial delaminations in the GRP that does not contain fatigue damage.
A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332 31
4. Conclusions
This study has assessed the ability of pulse-echo
ultrasonics to detect the formation and growth of fati-
gue induced damage generated by cyclic exural loading
of thick GRP composites. The damage induced by low
fatigue stress consisted of cracks in the resin matrix and
bre tows. These cracks were dicult to detect using
ultrasonics because they grew parallel to the transmis-
sion direction of the ultrasound waves. The detection of
this damage was just possible because the cracks were
forced to weave a torturous path through the bre tows
that caused a small amount of attenuation. The attenua-
tion is increased further by inspecting the composite at the
peak fatigue stress, which caused a further opening of the
cracks. It is unlikely, however, that the pulse-echo ultra-
sonics method would be able to detect damage induced by
lowfatigue stresses in thick composite ships because of the
large variation in the attenuation properties of the GRP.
The damage induced by high fatigue stresses consisted of
cracks, debonding of the surface tows as well as delami-
nations. These types of damage were more easily detected,
with delaminations as small as 10 mm being detected
more than 100 mmbelowthe surface. Damage induced by
high fatigue stress in thick composite ships may possibly
be detectable using ultrasonics.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr C.M. Scala and Dr R. Ditch-
burn for discussions about the results.
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32 A.P. Mouritz et al. / Composites Science and Technology 60 (2000) 2332