NON DESTRUCTIVE MEASUREMENT OF DAMAGE IN TRANSLUCENT COMPOSITES THROUGH LIGHT ABSORPTION ANALYSIS

Abstract The possibilities of using the variations of optical transmissivity Tr of translucent materials induced by cracks to derive a method for nondestructive control of large families of composites is considered. The objective is to assess for damage, due to diffuse microcracking. Sensitivity and precision are found to be quite promising. Examples of experiments performed on glass epoxy composites show that this method can give quantitative measurement of the damage defined as the relative reduction of the elastic stiffness of the material.