On the thermoelastic analysis of impact damage on foam-cored sandwich-construction composites

The paper describes some initial thermoelastic work carried out on impact damaged coupon specimens. The specimens are of a sandwich construction and are made up of a single skin of woven glass material and a CorematTM polyester foam core in a polyester matrix. The specimens were subjected to controlled levels of impact damage and thermoelastic readings were taken from both undamaged and damaged specimens. A damage severity parameter based on thermoelastic signal is introduced. The thermoelastic data is presented as a function of this parameter, in order to assess the sensitivity of the response for different levels of impact.