Conclusions

• An innovative 3D UT NDE system, based on complete UT waveform detection and processing, was utilized to carry out the full volume-scanning of impacted biaxial and quadriaxial NCF composite laminates

• The measurement and comparison of the volumetric damage development in the advanced composites made by the RIFT technology was performed through UT image analysis

• The results obtained showed that the biaxial NCF laminates performed better than the quadriaxial ones in terms of internal damage development

• By comparing the NCF laminates with classical composite laminates subjected to the same impact conditions, the NCF material displayed a much more reduced and circumscribed delamination damage

• The further developments of the research work will include the automatic characterization and measurement of volumetric damage in advanced composites through neural-network processing of UT image data