Inspection and evaluation of dry fibers in thick composites

This paper presents the investigation of dry fibers in thick composites. Dry fibers can be defined as lack of epoxy in localized regions. These local regions act as potential defects in thick composites under compressive loads and act as an initiation point for defects such as matrix cracking and delamination. Detection and characterization of dryness in glass/epoxy composites, with thickness greater than one inch, is presented in this paper. One inch samples with dry fibers were fabricated and tested. Detection is carried out with the help of air coupled ultrasonics in both through transmission and singled sided inspection. To characterize the amount of epoxy, time of flight data was correlated with density and fiber volume fraction. Based on the observations a technique was developed for characterization of dryness.