METHOD FOR ASSESSING STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

摘要

Disclosed is a method and system for non-destructively assessing the structural integrity of composite structures (10). The present invention makes continuous or periodic quantitative measurements of changes in structural stiffness and structural damping and relates these changes to the effective degradation of structural integrity (24) of the composite structure (10). The composites monitoring system employs vibration methods (12, 14) to monitor the changes in stiffness and damping properties of the structure (10) being monitored. Frequency tracking (22) of structural resonant modes of vibration along with compensation for environmental effects (16), can readily yield changes in stiffness of the composite structure (10). The flexible system allows for algorithms describing any composite fatigue or damage behavior characteristic to be provided as an input to the system.