Abstract: CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastics) composite materials have wide applicability because of their inherent design flexibility and improved material properties. However, impacted composite structures have 50%–75% less strength than undamaged structures. In this work, a CFRP composite material was nondestructively characterized in order to ensure product quality and structural integrity of CFRP and one-sided pitch-catch technique was developed to measure impacted-damaged area by using an automated-data acquisition system in an immersion tank. A pitch-catch signal was found to be more sensitive than normal incidence backwall echo of longitudinal wave under defect conditions in the composite.

Key words: Impact damages, C-scanner, Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), Pitchcatch mode