Monitoring of failures in the composites by non-destructive methods

A review of selected methods of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) for the monitoring of failures in composites based on ceramic or polymer matrices. The reasons of failures and the fillers actions related to them were discussed (Figs. 1-4). Acoustic emission as a variant of NDE methods has been characterized in details. An effort to classify the acoustic signals to find the load ranges relating to particular types of failures (Fig. 5, 6) has been taken up. Advantages of use of falck transform to evaluation of failures' progress at real time were illustrated (Fig. 7). Intelligent materials use for in situ monitoring of polymeric composite condition during its curing and exploitation (Fig. 8) was described.