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Home Journal Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310)
Manage E-Mail Alerts Manuscript ID aerospace-261952
Manage E-Mail Newsletters Type Article
Manage Saved Searches Number of Pages 18
Change Password Title Investigation of the Formation and Nondestructive Testing of Impact Damage in
Edit Profile Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites
Authors Ram Narayanan * , Robin James
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Abstract Advanced composite materials are extensively used in many commercial and
 Submissions Menu military aircraft and rotorcraft due to their superior stiffness and high strength-to-
weight ratio. These composites are subjected to unexpected environmental impact
Submit Manuscript loads at high speeds, such as bird strikes and hailstone impacts. The damages
Display Submitted developed in such cases is primarily in the form of delaminations and matrix
Manuscripts cracking, known as barely visible impact damage (BVID), since they are not easily
English Editing observable by the naked eye. These environmental impact damages can severely
compromise the overall strength and load-bearing capacity of the composite
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structure. In this paper, we employ the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH)
Invoices modeling method to simulate the extreme deformation of the impactor (hailstone
Help and bird) along with the composite plate and present the results of simulated
hailstone impact and bird impact occurring on an eight-layer unidirectional carbon
 Reviewers Menu fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) plate. We also propose a non-invasive microwave
nondestructive testing (NDT) technique as a detection methodology to detect the
Reviews simulated impact damages. Radar signals operating in the X-band frequency range
Reviewing Preferences (8–12 GHz) are shown to successfully detect the impact damages occurring in
unidirectional CFRP plates and obtain high-resolution 2D images of these damages.

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Comments and Suggestions

for Authors Although the topic is of interest and relevance, this manuscript lacks of novelty and
clear target. It consists of two separate chapters, one on simulation of high-velocity
impact of soft bodies on composite plates and one on non-destructive testing of low-
velocity impact of hard bodies on metal-composite-hybrids. No correlation is visible
or even possible. No clear target of this study or any new findings are presented.
The simulation study is very questionable. No verification or validation of the bird or
hail models or the composite model are presented. The modelling approach is not
advanced by dated (no delaminations, bad mesh, no fracture energies, no mesh-
dependent properties). This approach was used 20 years ago. The plate size is
much too small for these projectiles, the whole response is dominated by edge
effects. It is not clear to me what the reader is supposed to learn from this
manuscript.

Have the copyright holders of images 1 and 2 given their acceptance to reproduce
these images?

Submission Date 27 December 2017

Date of this review 02 Jan 2018 14:06:19

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