J. Inst. Eng. India Ser.
D
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40033-022-00382-6
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Evaluation of Damage Area on Low-Velocity Impact Tested
AA3003 Sandwich Panels Using Digital Image Analysis: A Novel
Method
R. S. Jayaram1 . S. Senthil Murugan2 . P. V. Prasanth3 . M. John Iruthaya Raj4
Received: 12 April 2022 / Accepted: 22 June 2022
Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2022
Abstract Composite sandwich panels are known to pos-
sess high specific mechanical strength and impact resis-
tance. The low-velocity impact test is performed to assess
the impact resistance, damage tolerance, and strength of
panels. Generally, it is difficult to calculate the damaged
area induced by the impact test on the panels by visual
inspection method on account of their colour visibility and
irregular shapes. In this study, a novel method based on the
digital image analysis technique combined with MATLAB
programming is proposed to calculate the exact damage
areas and can check its severity economically, and without
any robust instrumentation. The results are compared with
that of the visual inspection technique and confirmed that
the proposed method was an effective tool for the evalua-
tion of exact impact damage areas.
Keywords MATLAB
Image analysis

Low-velocity impact
Sandwich panels
& S. Senthil Murugan
gctsegan@gmail.com
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita College of
Engineering and Technology, Erachakulam 629901, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajalakshmi
Engineering College, Chennai 602105, India
3 be able to analyse the impact behaviour of composite plates
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ponjesly College of
Engineering, Parvathipuram 629003, India
4 delamination damage in the FS, the in-plane compressive
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mar Ephraem
College of Engineering and Technology, Marthandam,
Tamil Nadu 629171, India
Introduction
Sandwich panels that consist of a structure with two face
sheets on either side of a lightweight core are generally
used in civil infrastructure, automobile, aerospace, and
shipbuilding applications due to their significant properties
like high specific strength, stiffness, energy absorption
capacity, crashworthiness, low thermal conductivity, and
well acoustic properties. The main advantages of com-
posite panels are the weight reduction and also the pro-
duction cost [1]. The face sheets (FS) bear the in-plane load
whereas the core material sustains shear load during the
bending test. The major drawback of this panel is the low
integrity and damage resistance under impact loads; par-
ticularly low energy impact is of concern. An impact
caused by dropping the objects may instigate indentation
and the damages like crack, break, debonding, etc., on the
FS [2, 3]. In this situation, visually inspecting the damaged
area may not show significant damage and however, sig-
nificant damage occurs between the core and the FS. Thus,
the happened damage leads to the stiffness loss and a
decrease in the residual strength of the sandwich composite
panels [4]. An LVI is likely to be riskier because the
defects are not obvious for a long time. Many methods for
analysing LVI exist such as the Izod and Charpy impact
test, which is used to determine a material’s impact
toughness. Aside from that, there is the LVI drop weight
impact test, which involves raising a mass (normally
hemispherical impactor) to a specified height and then
releasing it, which impacts the specimen. Researchers will
as a result of these tests [5]. As the impact load causes
strength of the panel is highly affected. Delamination is a
kind of interior damage, so an increase in delaminating in
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samples is a sign of the significant damage inside [6, 7].
With the increase in applications of composite sandwich
panels, detection and assessment of the damaged area are
becoming a crucial and tough task.
Many methods are available to detect and measure the
damaged area in composite sandwich panels. All methods
have advantages and disadvantages based on accuracy,
expenses, robustness, and level of instrumentation needed
[8]. Non-destructive testing (NDT) by ultrasonic C-Scan is
commonly used and highly appropriated to obtain the size,
shape, and location of the delamination area in the sand-
wich panels. Still, interpretation of data is difficult which
arises from the acoustic attenuation and scattering of
ultrasonic waves due to the heterogeneous characteristics
of sandwich panels. The assessment of delamination
requires skilful knowledge and experience on the com-
posite sandwich panels [9]. The damaged area detected by
C-scan underestimated the damaged area, and it took into
account only overlapping delamination’s area directly
below the impact location, whereas visual inspection takes
into account the extent of the largest, single delamination
[10]. The other NDT methods to detect damage in com-
posite sandwich panels include electronic speckle pattern
interferometry (ESPI) [11], thermography [12], X-ray
computed tomography (CT) [13], shearography [14],
lighting protection sheet sensing [15], Digital image cor-
relation [16] etc. The applications of these methods are
limited because of several reasons like cost-wise, and poor
detection capability.
Since the shapes of the damages caused by the impact
test (low velocity) are irregular, many researchers esti-
mated the damage area value (maximum) by considering
the maximum length of the damaged area alone. The pro-
posed method of digital image analysis aims to determine
the exact damage area (A); then, the results will be com-
pared with the values of the maximum damage area (Amax),
and the damaged area determined by the visual inspection
method (Av). Usage of such new techniques (image anal-
ysis) is the novelty of this paper and through this method
damage area of an irregular shape can be calculated. Still
now in research articles, the maximum diameter of the
damage zone is used to find the damaged area even though
the undamaged area is also considered within it. The pro-
posed method finds the exact damage area and avoids the
consideration of the undamaged area. However, this
method is suitable for polymer composites material without
the addition of colour pigments during manufacturing. The
addition of particular dark colour pigments may interfere
with the pixel of the captured images. Also, when capturing
an image, a hollow square frame as a reference area is
placed on the outer zone of the damaged area. A MATLAB
programme is written in such a way that the known area
(area of hollow frame) minus undamaged area gives the
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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. D
exact damage area. In this study, the objective is to do the
low-velocity impact test at different energy ranging from
10 to 50 J on the prepared AA3003 honeycomb sandwich
panel at room temperature and to determine the damaged
area accurately using the image processing technique.
Materials and Method
Aluminium alloy AA3003 honeycomb (with cell size =
6.3 mm, thickness of wall = 0.068 mm, height = 10 mm)
was the core material and weave glass fabric was the FS
and polyester resin for this study. The Sandwich panel’s FS
was with density (areal) of 600 g/m3. Methyl ethyl ketone
peroxide (MEKP) was a hardener. Cobalt Naphthenate was
an accelerator. Both of them were utilised for curing
polyester used in face sheets and pins. Polyurethane foam
(apparent density 52 kg/m3) was used to fill the honeycomb
core with the help of a die following the ASTM D-1622
standard. The composite structure was developed by
pouring the foam (in solution state) into the die and
immediately setting the honeycomb core over it. Finally,
the foam-filled honeycomb sandwich (FHS) panel was
prepared by the vacuum infusion method. Here the foam
fills the entire cells of the honeycomb structure during
solidification. A hemispherical impactor (/12.7 mm,
weight (W) 2.926 kg) was used for the low-velocity impact
testing (Machine type: Fractovis Plus-Drop Weight Impact)
which was done on the prepared specimens(100 9 100
9 13 mm)in the range of 10.0–50.0 Joule (J) energy levels
by changing the impactor’s velocity. The sample was
positioned for testing in the machine fixture using a
pneumatic actuation system. The average of three samples
intended for testing was considered for the sandwich panel.
After the low-velocity impact testing, the damage on the
specimen was captured qualitatively using a Canon EOS
700D digital camera (Canon India Private Limited India).
Image processing technique based on MATLAB software
was used for measuring the impact damage area. Figure 1
shows the schematic representation for capturing the image
of the damaged specimen.
Results and Discussion
The low-velocity impact-tested specimens at different
energy level was attained by the camera as shown in Fig. 2.
The damaged area on the sample was measured by
MATLAB 7.9 image processing tool and the damaged area
calculated by the visual inspection method is shown in
Fig. 2, in which the damaged specimen is photographed
and visually inspected to determine the damaged area. The
damaged area was measured quantitatively using the
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. D
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram for image capturing
concept of image processing technique using MATLAB
software [17]. In the captured image, the pixel value is
variable as a result of the reflected light from the damaged
area of the specimens which is used to determine the
damaged area. The exact damage area means the damaged
irregular area, and the maximum damage area means the
maximum length of the damage is considered as diameter
and from that area is calculated as shown in Fig. 3. It may
be seen that the maximum diameter of damage is taken as
the damaged area, in which the undamaged area is also
taken into account. This limitation can be overcome by
image processing. The images of the image processing of
the impact tested specimen at different stages are shown in
Fig. 4a–e. In addition to the damaged area, the damage
severity, also known as the depth of damage, is given
weightage. Based on the pixel intensity, the acquired image
of the low-velocity impact damage specimen is processed
and split into three groups. As a result of reflected light
from the specimens’ damaged region, the intensity of the
acquired image varies. The groups are severely damaged
Fig. 2 Impact tested specimens at different energy levels
Fig. 3 Damage area detection (on 50 J) by visual inspection method
(red colour), moderately damaged (rose colour), and lightly
damaged (green colour) in Fig. 4e.
The damaged area calculated by the visual inspection
method and image processing method is given in Table 1.
It can be seen that the damaged area detected by the visual
inspection method is high compared to the image pro-
cessing method. Thus the visual inspection method over-
estimates the value due to human inaccuracy. In the image
processing method itself, the comparison will be made with
the maximum damage area and exact damage area. The
exact damage area is 40%, 34.7%, 32.2%, 28.21%, and
31.7% less than the maximum damage area for the dam-
aged specimen tested at different impact energy levels of
10–50 J as shown in Fig. 5. In the maximum damage area,
the maximum diameter of damage is considered and in
that, the undamaged portions are also taken into account.
Since the damaged area is not exactly circular, it is most
irregular in shape. From Fig. 6, it can be understood that
‘‘with an increase in energy’’, the severely, medium, and
lightly damaged area is also increased. In addition to the
comparison of specimens based on the damaged area, the
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 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. D

Fig. 4 Different steps in the processing of impact damages (a) captured image, (b) isolation of pixels based on intensity, (c) merging of void and
damage area, (d) segmented image, (e) coloured image

Table 1 Damage area calculated by the visual inspection and image processing method
Impact energy (J) Visual inspection* Image processing*
A B C D E F G H

10 27.33 586.92 25.06 493.26 403.54 378.73 18.24 6.57

20 28.57 642.34 27.02 573.51 481.88 454.23 17.87 9.78
30 30.97 753.48 28.72 648.13 518.17 495.7 15.41 7.06
40 32.38 823.74 29.63 689.7 552.18 521.07 18.09 13.02
50 33.62 887.85 31.21 765.32 626.32 594.17 21.02 11.13
2
*A = Max. length of the damage Dv (mm), B = Max. damage area Av (mm ), C = Max. Length of the damage Dmax(mm), D = Max.damage area
Amax (mm2), E = Exact damage area(mm2), F = Severely damage area AS (mm2), G = Medium damage area AM (mm2), H = Lightly damaged
area AL (mm2)

damage severity was also considered. It can be seen that
medium and lightly damaged areas are more or less
comparable.
Conclusions
A composite structure can sustain impact loads during its
application. LVI test is helpful to measure the break
resistance of composite sandwich panels. Impact damage
area is a measure of damage resistance performance of a
sandwich panel. Much effort has been put into finding the
most accurate method for determining the damaged area of
composite materials. Investigators measured the maximum
damage area by taking into account the maximum diameter
of the damaged region only. The proposed method by
image processing method with MATLAB finds the exact
impact damaged area accurately and avoids the consider-
ation of undamaged area. It was found that the visual
inspection method overestimates the value due to human
inaccuracy. In the image processing method itself, com-
parison will be made between the maximum damage area

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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. D
Fig. 5 Damage area measured by visual inspection and image
processing methods
Fig. 6 Effect of impact energy on the damage severity of FHS
sandwich panels
and the exact damage area. The exact damage area is on
average 35% less than the maximum damage area for the
specimen tested at different impact energy of 10.0–50.0 J.
Thus image processing is a cost-effective method to
determine the damaged area and its severity exactly.
Funding Funding is not applicable.
Declarations
Conflict of interest No conflict of interest.
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