Mechanical damage assessment of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer composites using passive infrared thermography

This study deals with characterization of the damage and thermomechanical behavior of the Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer composite materials (GFRP), submitted to static tensile loadings, using a passive infrared thermography technique. During mechanical testing, thermal measurements are performed by means of an IR camera. The thermal data post-processing involves the analysis of both the thermal maps and the thermomechanical behavior of the material. The thermal maps analysis allows qualitative evaluation of the created material damage at high stress levels. While the thermomechanical analysis gave us a quantitative evaluation of the material damage, for both low and high stress levels, through definition of a new thermoelastic damage variable. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.