Abstract
In this study, fatigue testing under mode-I loading and damage (delamination) detection tests were carried out on double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens, and subsequent healing of the delamination was investigated. Due to the susceptibility of laminated composites to delamination, fatigue delamination is one of the critical damage modes in laminated composites and can lead to catastrophic failure if it is allowed to proceed unchecked. Hence, it is necessary to investigate and quantify the delamination crack growth behavior due to fatigue loading and to accurately predict the size of the delamination crack and then to heal it in situ in a repeatable manner. A DCB specimen with an array of 8 MFCs was used to detect damage with the actuation signal as anti-symmetric Lamb wave excitation. The signal difference coefficient (SDC) was used as a delamination detection metric and calculated for different actuator and sensor location combinations.
