Estimation of interfacial damage in composites with reinforced particles based on ultrasonic data

The scattering of elastic waves by a spherical particle with imperfect interface and the nondestructive detection of interfacial damage were studied. First, the scattering of elastic waves by a spherical particle with imperfect interface, i.e. spring interface model, was studied. Then, multiple scattering by random distributed particles was investigated and the equations to evaluate the velocity and attenuation of effective waves defined by statistic averaging were given. Furthermore, on the basis of the established relation between the velocity and interfacial constants, a method to evaluate the interfacial damage nondestructively from the ultrasonic data was proposed. Numerical simulation was performed for the SiC-Al composites. The velocities of the effective waves were computed to show the influence of the interface constants. Using the genetic algorithm, the interfacial damage was evaluated from the synthetic experimental data with various noise levels. The numerical results showed the feasibility of the method proposed.