Proceedings

Thermography and Shearography Inspection of

Composite Hybrid Sandwich Structure Made of
CFRP and GFRP Core and Titanium Skins †
Marc Georges 1,*, Christian Srajbr 2, Philipp Menner 2, Joachim Koch 2 and Alexander Dillenz 2
1 Centre Spatial de Liège, STAR Research Unit, Liège Université, 4031 Angleur, Belgium
2 Edevis GmbH, Handwerkstraße 55, 70565 Stuttgart, Germany; [email protected] (C.S.);
[email protected] (P.M.); [email protected] (J.K.); [email protected] (A.D.)
* Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +32‐4‐3824632
† Presented at the 18th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics (ICEM18), Brussels, Belgium,
1–5 July 2018.

Published: 22 June 2018

Abstract: We have investigated several full‐field contactless techniques, such as thermography and
shearography, with several excitation methods for inspecting hybrid composite‐metal sandwich
structures. The latter are made of a core with epoxy reinforced by carbon and glass fibers and skins
of titanium. Several calibrated defects are incorporated at different places in depth and are made of
air gaps and inserts.

Keywords: composite materials; hybrid; sandwich; nondestructive inspection; thermography;

shearography

1. Introduction
Composite materials are well established now for building aircraft structures, as a possible
replacement of metal, mainly for their lower weight, high strength and resistance to corrosion.
Besides the development of materials and structures, specific nondestructive inspection (NDI)
techniques are studied actively, in order to detect and identify damages which are specific to these
materials. Full composite structures however do not always comply with some specific requirements
and hybrid structures, incorporating both composites and metals [1], are still necessary. In such case,
adapted NDI must also be studied and assessed.
In this work, we used as reference sample a sandwich structure typically 5 mm thick and
composed of a core made epoxy reinforced by carbon and glass fibers, with skins of Titanium
adhering to the former through epoxy adhesive. The plane sample incorporates Teflon inserts as
artificial defects, which generally simulate delamination in Ultrasound Testing (UT), as well as air
gaps (lack of epoxy), of different diameters and depths. UT did not provide satisfactory results.
Therefore, we have studied alternatives such as active thermography and shearography. For active
thermography, methods of excitations such as induction, vibration, modulated laser, modulated
lamps and flash lamps were used. In the case of shearography, methods of excitations such as lamp
heating, vibration and pressure variation (vacuum vessel) were used. In this paper, we will first
provide a description of the sample. Then we will review the different inspection approaches and
provide the results for each of them.

2. Description of the Sample

The sample is a hybrid sandwich metal‐composite flat panel (Figure 1). It is composed of an
epoxy core reinforced by successive carbon and glass fiber plies. The skins are made of titanium,
Proceedings 2018, 2, 484; doi:10.3390/ICEM18‐05384 www.mdpi.com/journal/proceedings
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glued to the core by means of epoxy adhesive films. The global thickness of the panel is 5 mm. Series
of defects are arranged at the intersection between lines and columns, such as displayed in Figure 1.
Column 1 (C1) represent defects the closest to the upper surface, whereas C4 are those the closest to
the lower one. They are located at the adhesive layer. Columns C2 and C3 correspond to defects
located in the composite core. Each line corresponds to a give type and diameter of defect: air gaps
of 6 or 25 mm for the external lines, or teflon inserts of 6 or 12 mm for central lines.

Figure 1. Description of the hybrid sample.

3. Inspection Techniques Used

Active infrared thermography is now an established technique for NDI, especially in the field of
composites. If an inspected part undergoes a thermal change, a thermal infrared camera observes at
its surface the very small temperature variations due to the presence of sub‐surface defects [2].
Various thermal imaging technologies are currently developed, marketed and used for detecting
defects in composites [3]. Generally, these temperature variations are generated by an excitation
source, either external or internal (the material itself under some stress). Figure 2a shows the principle
of the method. Various methods of excitation exist and are used for defect detection: mainly optical
(lamps), mechanical (vibration) or by electromagnetic induction [4]. Different configurations and
duration of excitation are used for each case, and are associated with processing of the data: pulsed
or burst mode, modulated mode (lock‐in) or step mode. Moreover, post‐processing can be applied
by different approaches: either deterministic (e.g., Fourier analysis of time series) or statistical (e.g.,
by Principal Component analysis) [4].

Figure 2. Nondestructive inspection techniques used: (a) active thermography; (b) shearography
Proceedings 2018, 2, 484 3 of 6

Shearography is a full field technique allowing measuring strain maps [5]. In NDI, it allows
detecting the local strains as local fringe density variations related to the mechanical response of a
defect under the effect of an excitation. Like thermography, various excitation methods exist, some are
similar to thermography (heating with lamps, vibrations), some are more specific, like pressure variations.
It is well known that the capacity of thermography and shearography for detecting a defect
depends on many factors. Mainly, the properties (thermal or mechanical) of the defect materials must
be such that, under a suitable excitation, a differentiated signature must be observable and the object
surface (either thermal or mechanical, in function of the inspection technique used). Also the
signature depends on the location (especially the depth) and the extent of the defect. Therefore,
assessing the performance of any NDI is not an easy task. One could consider simulating the NDI
experiment and the defect response to an excitation. However, in the complex case of composites,
moreover hybrid ones, this task would be difficult. Therefore, we considered a straightforward
experimental approach, performed on a large panel of equipment, both at the level of excitation and
inspection. Different combinations of inspection and excitation have been tested. They are described
in the next sections.

4. NDI by Thermography

4.1. Induction Thermography

Inductive thermography (IT) induces eddy currents in a specimen which are visualized using
an infrared camera. Inhomogeneities in the eddy current distribution indicate material defects. As
measurement result, the time lag between inductive excitation and thermal response is evaluated,
providing an extremely robust signal, which is insensitive to irregularities or impurities of the
component surface. IT is usually used for metallic samples crack detection, but other materials can
be investigated too [6,7]. Parameters of importance are electromagnetic skin depth (ESD) and thermal
penetration depth (TPD) which depend on the material, as well as to the frequency of the inductor.
At 100 kHz frequency, titanium’s ESD is around 2 mm and TPD 1.5 mm. For CFRP, ESD is 50 mm
and TPD is 1.2 mm [7]. Here we have a mix of CFRP/GFRP core for which these properties are not
known. However, if we extrapolate the values of CFRP, we see that we should be able to observe the
defects located close to the front side, for an inductor placed at the back side of our sample and which
produces the heat flow passing through the sample. The induction system is a circular inductor
placed behind the sample (Figure 3a,b). The camera is a FLIR A6751sc with frame rate of 125 Hz.
Different frequencies of the inductor have been tested. The only one which gave observable results is
25 kHz. The Pulse‐Phase method has been applied [6]. Figure 3c,d show respectively the amplitude
and phase for a Fourier frequency 0.1 Hz. Defects of column C2 can be observed in the phase part.
They correspond to defect inside the core. Unhappily, the technique does not provide a clear map of
defects, contrarily to other types of excitation. We clearly see here that the phase image is affected by
a pattern related to the form of the coil, as is also visible in the amplitude image.

Figure 3. (a) Induction thermography setup; (b) sample on top of inductor; (c,d) amplitude and phase
of thermography signal.
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4.2. Optical Excited Lock‐in Thermography

Optical excited Lock‐in thermography (OLT) makes use of modulated halogen lamps. The
penetration depth of thermal waves depends on the thermal diffusivity and the modulation
frequency of the lamp as ⁄ . Because of their lower diffusivity than metals, composites
like CFRP or GFRP require lower modulation frequencies to be penetrated by a thermal wave in order
to see subsurface defects. The lower the frequency, the deeper the defect observed. In the case of our
sample, this situation is favorable since such low frequency thermal wave will easily pass through
the metallic skin. The OLT technique consists in choosing an adequate modulation frequency of the
halogen lamp and recording a set of 4 thermograms at each quarter of the modulation period. A
simple algorithm is used to retrieve the amplitude and phase of the thermal wave [8]. The defects are
generally well observed in the phase images, as phase variations with respect to the surrounding
material. Figure 4a shows the set‐up: the camera is an IRCAM Equus 327 k. Phase images obtained
at various lamp modulation frequencies (Figure 4b–d). For the highest frequency (Figure 4d), only
the larger defect, close to the surface (column C1)) in visible. Lower frequencies allow probing deeper,
as is show in Figure 4b,c.

Figure 4. (a) Optical excited Lock‐in thermography setup; (b–d) phase images obtained at different
frequencies.

4.3 Optical Excited Pulse Thermography with Principal Components Analysis

One of the most conventional active thermography method is to use flash lamps. A set of
thermograms is recorded and post‐processed by different ways. Fourier analysis allows retrieving
amplitude and phase images at various frequencies, from a single measurement batch. Results are
then generally comparable to those of OLT. Another way to process them is by using a statistical
method, the principal components analysis [9]. It provides a reduced set of images which are the
eigenvectors of a matrix formed all the spatio‐temporal data obtained by the thermogram sequence.
These eigenvectors, so‐called empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs), are ordered by decreasing
spatio‐temporal variability. Usually the defects appear well represented in some of the first EOFs.
The setup used is similar the one shown in Figure 4, except for the lamp which is a 6kJ flash lamp
from Hensel. Figure 5 shows EOFs 4 and 5 where defects are visible on all column C1 and some of C2.

Figure 5. Optical excited pulse thermography results with PCA: two of EOFs showing the defects on
columns C1 and C2.
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5. NDI by Shearography
Shearography requires the recording of the interference between an image and itself laterally
displaced by means of an optical shearing device placed in front of the camera. This interference
pattern is called a shearogram. Usually the phase‐shifting (PS) is applied for computing the optical
phase difference: a set of shearograms are recorded under the same object state, but with an
additional phase step applied to only one of the two images. Such phase step can be induced by
movin one element of the shearing device. A simple algorithm is used to retrieve the optical phase
difference between both interfering beams. The general procedure of shearography inspection is to
record a shearogram (and generally its phase by PS) when the object is in a first state (e.g., at rest).
Then the excitation is applied to the object and new shearograms are recorded (possibly with PS).
The difference between both shearograms, or the phases calculated by PS, provides a fringe pattern
(interferogram) which corresponds to the spatial derivative of the displacement field of the object
surface under the effect of the excitation. Looking for different loading conditions allows finding
observing more or less easily defects. Shearography is generally well suited for showing local fringes
due to deformation of the skin under which a lack of adhesion (disbond) is present. This can be seen
by heating, change of pressure or vibration. The shearographic device used here is from the ISI‐SYS
company, model SE2 (Figure 6a).
In the case of vibration, different methods are generally used. In all cases, vibration if provided
by a shaker attached on the object (Figure 6a) and vibrating at a single sinusoidal frequency. The
signal of defects appears very well defined frequencies due to the resonance effect. The first mode is
the time‐averaged mode in which the shearograms are integrated by the camera over a very long
time compared to object oscillation period. The surface appears not deformed except for the defects.
(Figure 6b shows the fringe pattern for excitation of 32 kHz. Such an image is not always easy to be
used for finding defects signatures since it is affected by the uneven reflecting properties of the object.
The stroboscopic mode can be used. Here the PS can be applied, but it requires to modulate
stroboscopically the illumination laser in synchronization with the vibration. Results at two
frequencies are shown in Figure 6c,d. The signature of air gaps of 25 mm diameter close to the surface
are well visible, but stationary waves observed on the whole sample disturb the images.

Figure 6. Shearography with vibration excitation. (a) Setup; (b) Time‐averaged mode; (c,d)
stroboscopic mode.

6. Discussion—Conclusion
Thermography and shearography full‐field NDI techniques have been used with different
excitation sources for finding defects in hybrid sandwich structures made of titanium skins and
CFRP/GFRP mix core. So far, thermography with lamp heating provides good results, where the
defects at depths typically of 2 mm have been observed, with diameters as small as 6 mm. Especially,
optical excited lock‐in thermography provided the best results. Shearography can also provide good
results. So far, with our sample, vibration gave impressive results but only on larger defects (air gaps,
diameter 25 mm) and no deeper than 2 mm. In particular defect on column C2 is much better seen
than with thermography. This shows that complementarity of these NDI techniques should be
envisaged for future works, with separate techniques or under integrated schemes [10,11].
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Author Contributions: M.G. performed the experiments and wrote the paper, C.S., P.M., J.K. and A.D. of Edevis
Company performed the experiments and provided assistance and advises during the measurement campaign.

Acknowledgments: These results have been obtained with financial support of Wallonia under the project
TECCOMA (contract No. 7281) in the frame of SKYWIN competitiveness pole.

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