Damage monitoring in composite materials by means of IR-Thermography and Acoustic Emission.

The large use of composites in the structural field, makes it necessary to study the presence of damage and how it affects their mechanical properties. The complex nature of these materials makes it necessary to perform different types of tests, accounting for their intrinsic anisotropy. Also, the combination of mechanical tests with nondestructive techniques has become widely used for research purposes, as it allows one to obtain more information regarding damage, from both mechanical and energetic viewpoints. Here we use IR-thermography and acoustic emission to detect and localize the development of damage during static tests on glass-carbon/epoxy composite specimens with an edge notch. Aim of the current research is to find a relationship between the mechanical behavior and the energetic response, by coupling mechanical tests with real-time nondestructive techniques