Non-Destructive Evaluation of Composite Materials

Dear Colleagues,

The production of composite materials is growing very rapidly, and it is expected to continue to increase at a rate of between 10 and 13 percent over the next few years. The industrial sectors leading the current level of growth in composite component manufacturing are engineering (automobile, aerospace, naval), civil, wind, sports and medical.

An even faster development in the use of polymer composites can be enhanced by non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques that can verify properties, determine structural integrity, monitor performance over time and test the quality of the products to ensure that their specifications are met. 

Composites are characterized by manufacturing techniques such as spray lay-up, filament winding, bag moulding, pultrusion, hand lay-up, injection moulding, resin transfer moulding and compression moulding, which can cause the formation of different types of defects and flaws in terms of porosity, delamination, air bubbles, cracks, blowholes and inclusion of foreign bodies in the matrix. Moreover, defects in composite structures can form during service, in most cases due to impacts and fatigue.

The non-destructive techniques capable of detecting defects are numerous, for example: ultrasonic, thermography, acoustic emission, eddy current, X-ray, shearography, dielectric techniques, and variation-damping method.

In this Special Issue, modern trends on the non-destructive evaluation of composite materials, including all emerging techniques and applications in the non-destructive testing of composites, are highlighted and discussed.

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications and reviews are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Antonio Pantano
Guest Editor

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