Identification of Delamination in Composite Beams using the Fractal Dimension-Based Damage Identification Algorithm

Abstract Damage detection and identification is one of the most important tasks of proper operation of technical objects and structures. It is, therefore, essential to develop efficient and sensitive methods of early damage detection. Delamination is the type of damage occurring in laminated composites that is one of the most dangerous and most difficult to detect. In this paper, the computational study was performed on the numerical data of the modal shapes of laminated composite beams with simulated delaminations in order to detect them using a fractal dimension-based approach. The obtained results allowed for improvement of detection accuracy as compared to previously applied wavelet-based approach. An additional benefit was decreasing the computational time. Basing on the obtained results it is reasonable to consider the presented approach as a promising alternative to currently applied signal processing methods used for supporting non-destructive testing of structures.