Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Impact damage assessment in orthotropic CFRP laminates using nonlinear T

Lamb wave: Experimental and numerical investigations
Ying Tie, Qingsong Zhang, Yuliang Hou , Cheng Li
⁎ ⁎

School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Science Road 100, 450001 Zhengzhou, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In this study, experimental and numerical approaches based on the nonlinear ultrasonic Lamb wave are used to
CFRP laminates detect the barely visible impact damages (BVID) in orthotropic CFRP laminates due to low velocity impact (LVI).
Low velocity impact A drop-weight impact test system and a RITEC nonlinear ultrasonic system are adopted for experimentally
Lamb wave measuring the higher harmonics of lamb wave in the damaged CFRP laminates. An integrated finite element (FE)
Barely visible impact damages
model is proposed to further identify the interaction between Lamb wave and impact damages, in which Hashin
Nonlinear parameter
criterion and triangular cohesive zone model (TCZM) are used to predict the initiation and evolution of dela-
mination and other damages under LVI. Then, the displacement–time signal and the relative acoustic nonlinear
parameters (RANP) of the Lamb wave excited by sinusoidal displacement load are extracted to evaluate the
damage in the same FE model. Finally, the relevance between LVI damage and RANP is investigated by nu-
merical and experimental analyses under LVI with different energies, and shows that the amplitudes of har-
monics and RANP increase with the raise of the impact energy, as well as the delamination areas. Therefore, the
amplitude of harmonics and RANP can be used as indicators to detect BVID.

1. Introduction
Composites have been widely used in various industries owing to
their extraordinary properties, especially in aeronautics industries. For
example, the extensive application of composite materials in the
structure of the Boeing 787 results in significant structural performance
gains [1]. During the service life, composite aircraft structures often
suffer from various impacts such as runway debris, hail or dropped
tools. Generally, most of those impacts are with small energies but may
cause barely visible impact damages (BVID) including matrix cracking,
fiber breakage or delamination, and these minor damages pose a huge
potential threat to structural safety, so the detection of BVID is parti-
cularly important before destructive disaster.
Damage detection systems based on the ultrasonic Lamb wave ac-
tivated by piezoelectric sensor, have been widely used, due to their
durability, light-weight and low power consumption [2,3]. In addition
to being used for metal structures, Lamb wave detection is also gra-
dually being used for the maintenance of composite structures [4].
Generally, damage detections based on Lamb wave are divided into
linear and nonlinear methods, by the behavior of wave-damage inter-
action. The linear features of Lamb wave such as time of flight, wave
reflection/transmission, etc. are commonly used for locating damages
[5]. Based on the change of Hilbert energy characteristics, Senyurek [6]
used the Lamb wave based techniques to monitor the cuts and impact
damages in wing-slats of Boeing 737 aircraft. It was found that the cuts
generated new boundaries and created well defined reflected waves
which might be used to estimate the location of the defects from their
arrival time. The impact damage could be detected from the change of
the wave propagation pattern, but interpretation of the signal and es-
timation of the location was much more complicated. Ochôa et al. [7]
estimated the applicability of the two zero-order Lamb wave modes to
detect multiple barely visible impact damages in composite materials,
revealed the ultrasonic frequency sensitivity to different impact en-
ergies.
Finite element (FE) methods are used to further explain the inter-
action between linear Lamb wave and impact damages. Gupta et al. [8]
developed and validated a two-dimensional finite element model with a
delamination between layers in order to study the wave interaction
with delaminations in a 8-ply laminated composite plate. Their simu-
lation results indicated that it was difficult to detect the delamination
situated at the mid plane of the laminates with the reflection of S0 Lamb
mode, where the shear stress was found to be zero. De Luca et al. [9]
used the linear Lamb wave for characterizing the impact damage in
composite plates, and the strategy for modeling wave-damage interac-
tion was to simulate the Lamb wave propagation in a plate character-
ized by an initial stress–strain state, in which the related failures were

⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: yulianghou@zzu.edu.cn (Y. Hou), chengli@zzu.edu.cn (C. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2020.111869
Received 10 September 2019; Received in revised form 13 November 2019; Accepted 2 January 2020
Available online 03 January 2020
0263-8223/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Tie, et al.
carried out by a previous impact simulation involving the same model.
Moreover, RMSD (Root Mean Square Deviation) was used to compare
two kinds of modeling strategies, the traditional softening representa-
tion strategy and the one adopted in their article. However, further
experimental investigations are needed to assess which strategy gives
more accurate information on the interaction between Lamb wave and
LVI damages.
Compared with linear ultrasound, nonlinear Lamb wave is more
sensitive to microscopic damage. In recent years, significant progress
has been made towards using higher harmonics appeared in the lamb
wave response for damage detection, which is feasible for detecting
fatigue damage, micro-cracking and other types of material damages
[10–13]. In the case of Lamb wave based nonlinear methods, the pre-
sence of damage was determined by higher harmonics, sub-harmonics,
shift of resonance frequency, and mixed frequency response [14].
Although a majority of the existing studies focused on the applica-
tion of higher harmonics for damage detection in metallic materials,
there were very limited studies focused on detecting the BVID in la-
minated composites using higher harmonics of guided wave. In the
study of Aymerich et al. [15], the CFRP laminates were instrumented
with two low-profile piezo-ceramic transducers for impact damage
detection based on a low-frequency modulation of the ultrasonic ex-
citation signal. The damage induced by impact was exhibited in a
power spectrum of the acoustic response by a pattern of sidebands
around the main acoustic harmonic. Rauter et al. [16] detected impact
damages in a unidirectional carbon fiber epoxy composite by means of
cumulative second harmonic modes at a certain frequency. The com-
parison of the development of group velocity as an indicator of the
linear propagation properties and the relative acoustical nonlinearity
parameter standing for the nonlinear propagation properties showed
that the linear propagation properties were much more sensitive to
impact damages than the linear propagation properties. Moreover, it
was quite evident that whether the testing wave was linear or non-
linear, there were uncertainties associated with acquired signals. Hong
et al. [17] established a mathematical model of the statistical prob-
ability distribution of relative acoustic nonlinearity parameter (RANP),
to predict BVID in CF/EP laminates by nonlinear Lamb wave. The
probabilistic model of RANP established was independent of the ma-
terial or its isotropy.
To investigate the LVI damage detection capability of the Lamb
wave for CFRP laminates, an impact-detection integrated modeling
strategy was presented, which has been validated for the linear ultra-
sonic wave cases of CFRP laminates [9]. This kind of integrated model
allows a better damage modeling and, consequently, overcoming the
damage modeling approximations. However, the detection of small
delamination using these linear methods is seen to be difficult, whereas,
Lamb-wave-based nonlinear methods are sensitive to the delaminations
with small size [18]. Novelty of the present numerical modeling work
lies in providing the inter-laminar damage and wave-damage nonlinear
interaction to detect the small delamination and non-classical non-
linearities, respectively.
The objective of the paper is to demonstrate the interaction between
Lamb wave and impact damages, further evaluate the BVID in CFRP
laminates with higher harmonics and RANP through both numerical
and experimental approaches. The remainder of the paper is organized
as follows. Section 2 briefly introduces damage criteria and relative
acoustic nonlinear parameter used for the damage detection. Section 3
presents the experimental procedure performed to impacted laminates
and detect the higher harmonics of lamb wave. FE simulation is carried
out in Section 4, where an integrated model combined with a sequence
of procedures, including impact step, vibration-out step, and wave-da-
mage interaction step, is described. The results of experimental study
and FE simulation are discussed in Section 5 and the paper is concluded
in Section 6.
2
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
2. Damage criteria and relative acoustic nonlinear parameter
2.1. Damage criteria and damage evolution of composites
Generally, there are mainly three types of damages in composite
laminates caused by low velocity impact, including matrix damage,
fiber damage and delamination [19]. Damage criterion is the key to
predict damage in numerical simulation. Hashin damage criteria have
been successfully used in numerous FE simulations owing to the more
accurate identification of damage and degradation in composite mate-
rials [20–22]. However, it should be pointed out that the damage cri-
teria only predict the damage initiation of composites. Once the damage
initiation occurs, further loading will cause stiffness degeneration of the
material. Lapczyk et al. [23] introduced a energy-based softening law to
model progressive damage in fiber-reinforced materials and addressed
problems in the numerical simulation, such as mesh sensitivity and
convergence during the damage process. In addition, for delamination
induced by low velocity impact, the cohesive element and triangular
cohesive zone model (TCZM), have been proved a effective way in
numerical simulation by many researchers [24,25].
According to previous simulation works by the authors [26–28], a
user-defined subroutine was developed based on coupling theories for
the 3D Hashin cirterion and energy-based damage evolution in order to
accurately analyze the composite intralaminar progressive failure and
the interlaminar delamination. There is a damage variable D to identify
the damage state of the elements in LVI simulation. The value of D
monotonically increased from 0 to 1 with further loading after damage
initiation. D = 0 stands for undamaged state and D = 1 for fully da-
maged state.
2.2. Selection of the frequency and relative acoustic nonlinear parameter
The dispersion is the significant characteristic of Lamb wave. Many
studies pointed out that most of the obvious second harmonic wave
generated when the phase velocity of fundamental harmonic wave was
the same as that of the second harmonic wave [29,30]. Generally, Lamb
wave is always composed of more than two modes, where anti-sym-
metric modes and symmetric modes are the basic modes. The more
modes, the more dispersed energy exists in propagation, and lower-
order modes have less energy attenuation than higher-order modes. The
phase velocity dispersion curves for a 10-ply CFRP laminated composite
plate with an orthotropic layup (denoted as [0/90]5) and a thickness of
2.4 mm are illustrated in Fig. 1. Therefore, A0 mode excited at the
frequency ranging from 0.5 MHz to 1 MHz (Frequency-thickness from
1.2 MHz.mm to 2.4 MHz.mm) was selected due to the phase velocity
matching of the fundamental and second harmonic wave at ω1 and ω2,
respectively. Specially, the 0.5 MHz was investigated in this work.
With the variation of the material degradation or the contact
Fig. 1. Dispersion of Lamb wave in [0/90]5 CFRP laminates.
Y. Tie, et al. Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

nonlinearity at damage interfaces, the harmonic amplitude will change
as the wave energy transfers from the fundamental harmonic wave to
the higher harmonic waves. For quantifying the nonlinear phenom-
enon, the second RANP can be calculated as bellow [31,32]:
A2
= sensor as below:
A12
where A1 and A2 are the amplitudes of the fundamental and second
harmonic waves respectively. Similarly, the third RANP can be defined
as below:
A3
= pactor, so t = 0 means that the impact starts, and Fi(t) is the contact
A13
where A3 is the amplitude of the third harmonic wave.
In this work, the impact damages such as delamination, matrix
damage and fiber damage, which interact with Lamb wave, generate
the higher harmonic waves. Therefore, the existence of nonlinear
sources such as impact damage can be showed according to the mag-
nitude of second or third harmonic components in the received fre-
quency-domain spectrum signals.
3. Experimental procedure
D7136M-05 standard to ensure the stability during impact process.
Moreover, an anti-secondary impact device was used over the fixture to
avoid the rebound of the impactor.
During the impact procedure, the data of impact velocity can be
obtained according to the contact force F measured by a dynamic force
(1)
1 t
vi (t ) = v0 Fi (t ) dt
m 0 (3)
where vi(t) is the impact velocity, v0 is the initial velocity, m is the mass
of the impactor, and t is the duration of the contact time of the im-
(2)
force at time t. Then, the impact energy Ek(t) can be calculated as
below:
1
Ek (t ) = m [vi (t )]2
2 (4)
The impact process usually lasts for only a few milliseconds and the
friction is usually ignored. It means that there is approximately no other
energy dissipation during the impacted process. Consequently, the en-
ergy Ea(t) absorbed by composite laminates is equal to the variation of
the kinetic energy of impactor as showed as below:

3.1. Materials and specimens Ea (t ) = Ek 0 Ek (t ) (5)

The energy Ea(t) absorbed by composite laminates will partly induce

T300/7901 CFRP laminates were selected in order to explore the
relationship between impact damage and harmonic generation of the
elastic waves in the CFRP laminates. The stacking sequence is [0/90]5
and material properties measured by the experiment tests are given in
Table 1. Specimens were manufactured with a dimension of
200 × 100 × 2.4 mm using water-jet cutting machine, shown as Fig. 2.
Then, six groups of low-velocity impact with energy of 0 J (namely no
impact load), 4 J, 8 J, 12 J, 16 J, 20 J were performed on these spe-
cimens in experimental study. At least five specimens were tested in
each group, ensuring valid results obtained for each impact energy case.
3.2. Drop-weight impact test
A LVI test system of the laminates was used to make the damage by
impacting the surface center of specimen as show in Fig. 3, according to
the ASTM D7136/D7136-07 standard [33]. The impact force was col-
lected through a dynamic force sensor (ICP 208C05) during the impact
tests. The impact energy was obtained by the hemispherical impactor
falling freely from a certain height to hit on the CFRP laminates. Spe-
cimen was clamped on the designed fixture based on the ASTM D7136/
Table 1
Material properties of T300/7901.
damages in the composite laminates, and then affects the nonlinearity
of Lamb wave propagating in laminates correspondingly.
3.3. Nonlinear ultrasonic wave measurement
Ultrasonic nonlinearity of specimens was measured by RITEC SNAP
RAM-5000 ultrasonic system in this study. As shown in Fig. 4a, RITEC
system mainly includes a high power 50 Ω termination (RT-50), a high
power attenuator (RA-6), two diplexers (FDK-X) and affiliated filter
groups, etc. The system has a built-in high-power gate amplifier and a
built-in synthesizer to precisely control the frequency of the modulation
signal. The transducers, plexiglass wedge and laminates coupled by
Vaseline couplant were stably fixed by a special fixture (Fig. 4b). In
order to eliminate the harmonic components generated by the RITEC
detection system itself and ensure the accuracy for measurement, low-
pass and high-pass filters were connected in the transmitting and re-
ceiving routes respectively. A sinusoidal signal (0.5 MHz and 10 cycles)
modulated by Hanning window was employed as the excitation signal
of A0 mode, as described in Section 2.2. Moreover, the 0.5 MHz and
1 MHz transducers were used as activator and receiver to detect har-
monic waves at 45° angle through Plexiglass wedges (Olympus Cor-
poration, USA).

Property Value
4. Finite element simulation methodology
Longitudinal modulus, E1 /GPa 125.90
Transverse modulus, E2 = E3 /GPa 11.30
The traditional FE simulation mostly presets the damages as crack
Shear modulus, G12 = G13 /GPa 5.43
Shear modulus, G23 /GPa 3.98
or delamination in the model for simulating the Lamb wave propaga-
Poisson's ratio, 12 = 13 0.30 tion in damaged structures. However, this kind of modeling strategy is
Poisson's ratio, 23 0.42 not enough to express the real damage state in CFRP laminates caused
Longitudinal tensile strength, XT /MPa 2000 by impact accurately. Different from the traditional modeling strategy,
Longitudinal compressive strength, XC /MPa 1100 the one presented in this work implements the production of damages
Transverse tensile strength, YT = ZT /MPa 80
and the propagation of Lamb wave in the same model, to study the
Transverse compressive strength, YC = ZC /MPa 280
Shear strength, S12 = S13 /MPa 120 relevance between impact damage and the wave nonlinearity.
Shear strength, S23 /MPa 120 Specifically, the modeling strategy is given in Fig. 5, which includes
Fiber tensile fracture energy, GftC /kJ/m2 91.6 three steps. First, the CFRP laminates are impacted by an impactor with
Fiber compressive fracture energy, GfcC /kJ/m2 79.9 a certain speed to generate damages, then are rebalanced and reached
Matrix tensile fracture energy, Gmt
C
/kJ/m2 0.22 quasi-static equilibrium state in a very short time by introducing a vi-
Matrix compressive fracture energy, Gmc
C
/kJ/m2 1.1 bration-out step. Finally, equivalent sinusoidal displacement signal is
Density, /kg·m 3 1792 loaded to the plate to excite nonlinear signal response. The finite ele-
ment simulation was completed by using ABAQUS®/CAE code [34].

3
Y. Tie, et al. Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

Fig. 2. (a) Specimen geometry configuration (unit: mm) and (b) photograph of the specimen.

prescribed to the impactor, while the composite laminates were fully

clamped according to the ASTM D7136/D7136-07 standard [33].
As the complete failure of elements occurs, contact must be allowed
not only with the exterior surfaces of the plate, but also with its interior
surfaces. To include interior surfaces in the contact domain, the sur-
faces that include both the exterior and the interior faces of the lami-
nates were defined in this contact study. Mesh sizes of 0.2 mm and
0.5 mm were adopted in CFRP laminates and impactor, to ensure the
efficiency and accuracy of wave-damage interaction in step 3 (in Fig. 5).
The impact energies of 0 J (namely no impact load), 4 J, 8 J, 12 J, 16 J
and 20 J were set, by defining with different impact velocities. Mean-
while, Hashin criterion and triangular cohesive zone model (TCZM)
were introduced to predict intra- and inter-laminar damages during low
velocity impact process as described in Section 2.1.
Subsequently, the impacted model of the laminates containing all
Fig. 3. Low velocity impact test system of the CFRP laminates.
the damage history and internal stresses, has been transferred to the
Vibration-out step.

4.1. Impact step

4.2. Vibration-out step
The numerical model of CFRP laminates impacted by a hemi-
The impact behavior is a highly dynamic nonlinear process. The
spherical impactor with the mass of 2 kg and diameter of 25 mm, is
vibration caused by impact will last a long time scale even the impact
shown in Fig. 6a. To reduce the computational time without compro-
simulation has been completed [35–37]. In fact, the vibration ampli-
mising on the calculation accuracy, eight-node continuum shell ele-
tude of the laminates is much larger than that of the Lamb wave. If the
ments with reduced integration (element type: SC8R), were used to
ultrasonic wave signal is directly loaded into the laminates which still
mesh each layer in the CFRP laminates [22]. The elements of each layer
keep vibrating, there will be no clear Lamb wave vibration signal to be
are regular and oriented according to the fiber orientation. Moreover,
received. So it is necessary to add a damped factor to make the plate
the eight-node cohesive elements (element type: COH3D8) with zero
stop vibrating in a very short time increment before Lamb wave de-
thickness were included to describe the interface between the adjacent
tecting. Therefore, a vibration-out step was introduced after impact step
layers of CFRP laminates. Parameters of these cohesive elements are
by loading a viscous pressure on laminates.
listed in Table 2. The hemispherical impactor was assumed as a rigid
To illustrate the positive effect of introducing the vibration-out step,
body in the simulation. Appropriate mass and initial velocity were
the central node on the upper surface of the CFRP laminates

Fig. 4. Nonlinear harmonic detection system: (a) system diagram, and (b) transducer placement with fixture.

4
Y. Tie, et al. Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

Fig. 5. Scheme of the proposed modeling strategy.

(coordinate: x = 100, y = 50, z = 0) was selected, and its dis- Table 2

placement–time curve at 20 J impact energy is extracted and illustrated Cohesive element parameters in FEM.
in Fig. 7. It can be seen that the node will keep vibrating at a high Property Value
amplitude in the absence of the vibration-out step. However, the vi-
bration at this node stops at a very short time (1.4 ms) and reaches a Tensile stiffness, Knn /N/mm3 100,000
quasi-static equilibrium state after introducing a vibration-out step in Shear stiffness, Kss = Ktt /N/mm3 100,000
the model. The adopted vibration-out strategy makes it feasible to load Tensile strength, tn0 /MPa 50

Lamb wave signal to the laminates and receive response correctly and Shear strength, ts0 = tt0 /MPa 94

clearly. Toughness in tension, GnC /kJ/m2 0.52

Toughness in shear, GsC = GtC /kJ/m2 0.92

4.3. Wave-damage interaction step

The quality of mesh greatly affects the accuracy of ultrasonic wave
simulation [38]. To ensure the convergence and accuracy of the si-
mulation, 10–20 nodes are required for per wavelength referring to
literature [39]. Meanwhile, in order to guarantee the efficiency, the
mesh size of the laminates was 0.2 mm defined in Section 4.1. The time
step was set to 1 × 10−8s in this study.
Equivalent displacement load was applied to excite Lamb wave
signal. The Lamb wave excitation expression is as bellow:
excitation signal to generate A0 mode Lamb wave. The excitation and
receiving points were set on different sides of the impact point.
The Lamb wave propagation in damaged CFRP laminates at dif-
ferent times is given in Fig. 8. The damages shown in Fig. 8 are en-
veloped along the thickness direction of all damages (fiber damages,
matrix damages and delamination). The interaction between Lamb
wave and impacted damage in laminates produces scattered waves,
which allow detecting the damages in the plate.

A 2 ft
u (x , t ) = 1 sin ·sin(2 ft ) 5. Results and discussion
2 N (6)

where A is the modulation amplitude, f is the central frequency, and N In this section, initially, a good agreement between the experi-
is the number of cycles. As discussed in Section 2.2, the Hanning mental and numerical results of the impact force–time curves, absorbed
window modulation signal for 10 cycles of 0.5 MHz was selected as the impact energy and higher harmonics has been obtained, which provides

Fig. 6. Diagram of FE model: (a) low-velocity impact test and (b) element type and layup of CFRP laminates.

5
Y. Tie, et al.
Fig. 7. Effect of vibration-out step on the displacement–time curves of central
node on the upper surface of the laminates.
the validation of the numerical model in this study. Then, the influences
of different impact energies on damage, higher harmonics and RANP
are studied based on this numerical approach to indicate the relevance
between LVI damage and RANP.
5.1. Validation of FE models
The numerical and experimental force–time curves of the laminates
impacted with 4 J and 20 J impact energies during the impact step are
illustrated in Fig. 9. It is noted that, the numerical and experimental
force peaks are about 3.6 kN and 3.4 kN respectively in the case with
4 J impact energy, and about 5.2 kN and 5.4 kN respectively in the case
with 20 J impact energy. Hence, discrepancies less than 5.9% and 3.8%
are found in this comparison between the experimental and numerical
force peaks. Moreover, at 4 J and 20 J impact energies, the numerical
and experimental impact forces all reach the maximum at about 2.2 ms
Fig. 8. Lamb propagation in damaged CFRP laminates at different wave propagation times: (a) 0us. (b) 15us. (c) 30us. (d) 45us.
6
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
Fig. 9. Numerical and experimental force–time curves of the laminates im-
pacted with 4 J and 20 J impact energies.
after the onset of the impact. It is concluded that in the case with higher
impact energy, the impact force reaches a higher magnitude and the
impact process lasts longer. At the same time, the numerical and ex-
perimental absorbed energies of laminates were calculated using Eq.
(5), and as shown in Fig. 10. Similarly, the experimental absorbed en-
ergy of laminates also is basically consistent with the numerical one.
Compared with our previous study [26], the deviation of force peak and
absorbed energy between FE simulation and impact experiment is ac-
ceptable, considering the friction and energy dissipation in experi-
mental environment.
The numerical and experimental frequency-domain responses of the
Lamb wave in the undamaged and damaged specimens, obtained using
fast Fourier transform (FFT), are presented in Fig. 11. In numerical
results (Fig. 11a), wave signals of undamaged specimen marked by
solid lines contain fundamental waves signals (0.5 MHz frequency) and
minor harmonics; while wave signals of damaged one marked by
Y. Tie, et al.
Fig. 10. Numerical and experimental energy-time curves of the laminates im-
pacted with 4 J and 20 J impact energies.
dashed lines contain significant second and third harmonics with fre-
quencies of 1 MHz and 1.5 MHz.
From these experimental results (Fig. 11b), typical wave signals
extracted by receiving transducer of RITEC system contain both fun-
damental wave (A1) and second harmonic (A2), in which damaged
specimen shows more obvious second harmonic compared with un-
damaged one. However, the third harmonic (1.5 MHz) is beyond sweep
frequency range of the receiving transducer (0.6–1.3 MHz), so the ex-
istence of actual third harmonic was not detected experimentally. As a
result, the second harmonics are generated and extracted at 1 MHz
frequency both in FE simulation and experimental measurement as
shown in Fig. 11, while the higher harmonics were also observed in the
Lamb wave response in composite laminates with an artificial delami-
nation and were used to detect the delamination [15]. It manifests that
acoustic nonlinearity of the impact damage is effectively established
and detected by the numerical method in this paper.
5.2. Damages of the laminates impacted with different energies
Numerical impact steps of orthotropic CFRP laminates at different
impact energies were carried out in order to study the effect of impact
energy on the damage modes. The damage configuration super-
impositions at different impact energies are presented using rainbow
spectrum of damage variable D in Table 3.
From Table 3, it indicates that only a tiny area of fiber compressive
and matrix tensile damages occurs within the CFRP laminates during
the low-velocity impact with energy of 4 J, while larger damage areas
Fig. 11. Frequency responses within the damaged laminates obtained in (a) numerical simulation and (b) experimental test.
7
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
in the cases of 8 J and 20 J occur in the CFRP laminates. Regardless of
fiber, matrix or adhesive layer, the higher impact energy, the more
serious damage was caused by the low-velocity impact. It should be
mentioned that the fully damaged elements appear and are deleted in
the cases of 8 J and 20 J. These deleted elements represent the occur-
rence of the crack and actual delamination within the CFRP laminates.
Through these results, it can be said that different impact energies al-
ways lead to different impact damage modes and levels. Moreover, fiber
breakage always presents a symmetrical state following the direction of
fiber. Similarly, the matrix cracking and delamination also exhibit a
symmetrical state distribution near the impact location.
The area superimpositions of all damages are shown in Fig. 12. The
impact energy is converted into the energy absorbed by laminates, as
illustrated in Fig. 13, according to Eqs. (1)–(3). The absorbed energy is
almost equal to zero when the impact energy is 4 J, which means that it
is not enough to generate obvious damage as shown in Table 3. After
that, when impact energy increases from 8 J to 20 J, the absorbed
energy obviously increases. Therefore, the absorbed energy by lami-
nates is closely related to the damage evolution.
The experimental surface damages of specimens impacted with
different energies are presented in Fig. 13. Firstly, in the case of impact
with energy of 8 J, there are no obvious defects shown in Fig. 13(a).
Then, impact pit starts to occur on the upper surface of laminates in the
case of impact with energy of 12 J in Fig. 13(b). Finally, Fig. 13(c)
shows that there are cracks on the upper surface at 20 J impact energy.
Fig. 14 shows the experimental internal damages of the laminates
impacted with different energies. Fig. 14a gives a reference feature in
undamaged specimen. In Fig. 14b and c, the internal damages induced
by the 12 J and 20 J impact energies, consist of matrix cracking, fiber
breakage and delamination. From the micrograph results, the larger
size of damages due to larger impact energy can be observed.
Compared experimental results (Figs. 13 and 14) and numerical
results (Table 3), it can be noted that the matrix cracking, fiber
breakage and delamination all occur, when the impact energy is more
than 8 J. Moreover, numerical simulations show that the increasing
trend of damage size with the rise of impact energy are consistent with
expetimental results.
5.3. Higher harmonics within the laminates impacted with different energies
Numerical wave-damage interaction step of orthotropic CFRP la-
minates were carried out in order to observe the relevance between LVI
damage and Lamb wave harmonics. The displacement–time data of
CFRP laminates was extracted as received output signal to study non-
linear features of wave using numerical simulations. Fig. 15 shows the
Y. Tie, et al.
Table 3
Numerical damage configurations at different impact energies.
Energy Fiber compressive Fiber tensile
4J
8J
20 J
Notes: the scalar damage variable D expressed in color spectrum.
Fig. 12. Numerical envelop damage areas of the laminates impacted with different energies.
displacement–time responses within the laminates in the cases with 0 J
(no impact load), 8 J and 12 J impact energies. It can be seen that the
envelope amplitude of the signal decreases with the increase of the
impact energy, which is related to the energy attenuation during wave
propagation. In order to analyze the higher harmonics and nonlinear
phenomenon, the frequency-domain signal is calculated by FFT, as
shown in Fig. 16a. By regularization of the amplitude (A1) of funda-
mental wave, it is found that as the impact energy increasing, ampli-
tudes of the second (Fig. 16b) and third harmonic (Fig. 16c) show an
increasing trend. That is, the greater the impact energy, the greater the
nonlinear effect. However, due to tiny absorbed energy and damage
areas of the laminate specimen in the case with 4 J impact energy in-
dicated in Section 5.2, its harmonic amplitude shows few increments,
compared with that of the undamaged specimen (no impact load). In
particular, there is a tiny nonlinear harmonic effect in the CFRP
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
Matrix compressive Matrix tensile Delamination
laminates without impact damage in the intact state (0 J) due to the
anisotropy of material properties of T300/7901 simulated in this work.
Different from the numerical simulation, in experimental procedure,
the fundamental signal and second harmonic signal were extracted
separately by RITEC system through different channels. The time-do-
main signals for the undamaged (0 J) and damaged specimens (20 J)
are illustrated in Fig. 17. It can be seen that the amplitude of funda-
mental wave is almost no different between undamaged and damaged
one, all equal to 70 V , as shown in Fig. 17a, however, the amplitude of
harmonic (20 V) of the damaged specimen is much bigger than that
(5 V) of the undamaged one in Fig. 17b.
The experimental frequency-domain curves within the laminates
impacted with different energies are shown in Fig. 18, which contains
the output frequency signals of both fundamental wave (A1) and second
harmonic (A2). The fundamental wave magnitude A1 within the
8
Y. Tie, et al. Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

Fig. 13. Numerical absorded energy of the laminates impacted with different energies. Fig. 13. Experimental surface damages of the laminates impacted with
energies: (a) 8 J, (b) 12 J, (c) 20 J.

Fig. 14. Experimental internal damages of the laminates impacted with energies: (a) 0 J (undamaged specimen), (b) 12 J, (c) 20 J.

laminates impacted with different energies is always around 7.1 V, Therefore, with the variation of the material degradation or the
while the second harmonics magnitude A2 has a certain growth trend contact nonlinearity at damage interfaces, the harmonic amplitude will
with the increasing of impact energy basically. These results show that change as the wave energy transfers from the fundamental harmonic
the second harmonics magnitude A2 can reflect damage states of spe- wave to the higher harmonic waves [10]. From both the numerical and
cimen, but fundamental wave A1 cannot. It can also be seen that in the experimental studies, it is shown that the trend of the second harmonic
cases of the impact energies of 0 J (no impact load) and 4 J, the second magnitude is more related to the difference in absorbed energy and the
harmonic magnitudes of the specimens are all very small, equal to damage area of laminates caused by impact. However, it is confirmed
0.1 V, while the second harmonic magnitude of the specimens increases that by measuring and simulating the higher harmonics, the existence
to 0.4 V, 0.9 V and 1.2 V for the impact energies of 8 J, 16 J and 20 J
respectively. Combined with the numerical simulation, it is confirmed
that this change trend of the second harmonic magnitudes is more re-
lated to the difference in absorbed energy and the damage area of la-
minates caused by impact.
The difference of the second harmonic magnitude A2 within the
laminates impacted with different energies is further clarified by ex-
perimental impact damage of specimen in Figs. 13 and 14. Firstly, in
the case of impact with energy of 8 J, there are no obvious surface
defects, but actually micro-cracks and small delaminations have oc-
curred inside the specimen shown in Fig. 13(a). Then, in the case of
impact with energy of 12 J, impact pit starts to occur on the upper
surface of laminates, at the same time, internal damages, consisting of
matrix cracking, fiber breakage and delamination can be observed in
Figs. 13(b) and 14(b). Finally, Fig. 13 (c) shows that there are cracks on
the upper surfaces at 20 J impact energy. These differences of impacted
damage modes on the upper surfaces and in the interior of the specimen
can explain the distinction of harmonic magnitude in specimens very
Fig. 15. Numerical time domain responses within the laminates impacted with
well.
different energies.

9
Y. Tie, et al. Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869

Fig. 16. Numerical frequency responses within the laminates impacted with different energies: (a) total signal, (b) second harmonic and (c) third harmonic.

of BVID in CFRP laminates can be detected effectively.
5.4. RANP within the laminates impacted with different energies
For analyzing the effect of different impact damages quantitatively
on the nonlinearities of lamb wave, the numerical RANP within lami-
nates impacted with different energies were calculated, according to
Eqs. (1) and (2), as shown in Fig. 19a. It can be seen that second RANP
increases gradually with increase of impact energy. In addition, the
change trend of third RANP is basically consistent with that of second
RANP, although third RANP is much smaller than second RANP. Ab-
sorbed energy, damage areas and RANP show a consistent trend of
change overall, as shown in Fig. 19b, so these parameters can all be
used as important indicators for impact damage assessment. At the

Fig. 17. Experimental time domain responses received by RITEC system: (a) fundamental signal and (b) second harmonic signal.

10
Y. Tie, et al.
Fig. 18. Experimental frequency-domain responses: (a) total signal and (b) second harmonics.
Fig. 19. Numerically predicted RANP within the laminates impacted with dif-
ferent energies: (a) second and third harmonic RANP, And (b) RANP with ab-
sorbed energy and damage areas.
same time, combined with impact damage analysis results, the area of
impact damage can be estimated by detecting RANP, according to
Fig. 19b. However, it is worth noting that there is little difference of
RANP between 0 J (no impact load) and 4 J energies. It is attributed to
the fact that the damage area caused by 4 J impact is too small (10 mm2
in total) to produce predictable harmonics of lamb wave, as shown in
Table 3 and Fig. 19b.
At the same time, experimental RANP is quantified, as given in
Fig. 20. Experimental results show that the RANP increase effectively
with the increasing of impact energy, which is consistent with the re-
sults of numerical simulation. It manifests that, the higher the impact
11
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
Fig. 20. Experimental RANP within the laminates impacted with different en-
ergies.
energy, the more serious the damages. Thus, the acoustic nonlinear
interaction between damage and Lamb wave will be more significant,
and the more wave energy will be transformed to higher second har-
monic. Moreover, it should be mentioned that, although both in nu-
merical and experimental studies, tiny ultrasonic nonlinear phenom-
enon in the undamaged laminates were also detected because of the
anisotropic properties of T300/7901 material, however, this kind of
tiny nonlinearity has no effect on the detection of the damage induced
by impact with energy above 4 J.
An interesting fact to discuss is the relevance between the damage
areas and RANP. After comparison with previous study [18], it seems
reasonable to say that absorbed energy, damage areas and RANP can all
be used as important indicators for impact damage assessment. At the
same time, combined with impact damage analysis results, the area of
impact damage can be estimated by detecting RANP. Therefore, from
both numerical and experimental studies, by measuring RANP, not only
the existence of BVID in CFRP laminates can be detected effectively, but
also the area of BVID can be evaluated.
6. Conclusions
In this study, both numerical and experimental methods were car-
ried out for detecting the BVID in CFRP laminates caused by low ve-
locity impact based on nonlinear ultrasonic, especially the higher har-
monics generated by the acoustic nonlinear interaction of Lamb wave
and impact damages. An impact-detection integrated model for nu-
merical simulation, considering delamination and wave nonlinearity,
Y. Tie, et al.
was introduced. A RITEC system was employed to measure the higher
harmonics of lamb wave in experimental procedure. For characterizing
the nonlinearities of Lamb wave, the quantified RANP was adopted. A
good agreement between the experimental and numerical results of the
force–time curves, absorbed impact energy and higher harmonics has
been obtained, which reveals the reliability of this numerical strategy.
To investigate the non-classical nonlinearities introduced by the
wave-damage interaction in LVI damaged CFRP laminates, the present
numerical modeling work lies in providing the inter- laminar de-
lamniation damage and wave-damage nonlinear interaction. Through
the studies, the higher harmonics were generated due to the wave-da-
mage nonlinear interaction. Moreover, it is found that the second har-
monics magnitude A2 presents a certain increasing trend with the in-
creasing of impact energy, which also change with the surface damage
condition of impacted specimen. However, the fundamental wave
magnitude A1 within the laminates impacted with different energies
remains constant.
The predicted RANP within the laminates impacted with different
energies were calculated to analyze the effect of different impact da-
mages quantitatively on the nonlinearities of lamb wave. Both the nu-
merical and experimental results demonstrate that the RANP increases
with the increasing of impact energy and damage area. By predict the
ultrasonic higher harmonics or nonlinear parameters, not only the BVID
of the composite laminates can be detected effectively, but also the area
of it can be evaluated.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Authors acknowledge the sponsorship and support from National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No.U1833116), and the China
Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (No. 2016M602256
and 2018M642775). This study is also supported by Key Scientific
Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province
(20A460003).
References
[1] Georgiadis S, Gunnion AJ, Thomson RS, Cartwright BK. Bird-strike simulation for
certification of the Boeing 787 composite moveable trailing edge. Compos Struct
2008;86:258–68.
[2] He J, Leckey CAC, Leser PE, Leser WP. Multi-mode reverse time migration damage
imaging using ultrasonic guided waves.ULTRASONICS.2019;94:pp. 319–331.
[3] Wang X, Wang X, Hu X, Chi Y, Xiao D. Damage assessment in structural steel
subjected to tensile load using nonlinear and linear ultrasonic techniques. Appl
Acoust 2019;144:40–50.
[4] Pillarisetti LSS, Talreja R. On quantifying damage severity in composite materials by
an ultrasonic method. Compos Struct 2019;216:213–21.
[5] Diamanti K, Soutis C. Structural health monitoring techniques for aircraft composite
structures. Prog Aerosp Sci 2010;46:342–52.
[6] Senyurek VY. Detection of cuts and impact damage at the aircraft wing slat by using
Lamb wave method. Measurement 2015;67:10–23.
[7] Ochôa P, Infante V, Silva JM, Groves RM. Detection of multiple low-energy impact
damage in composite plates using Lamb wave techniques. Compos Part B: Eng
2015;80:291–8.
[8] Gupta S, Rajagopal P. Effect of ply orientation and through-thickness position of
delamination on the reflection of fundamental symmetric S0 Lamb mode in GFRP
composite plate structures. Ultrasonics 2018;90:109–19.
[9] De Luca A, Caputo F, Sharif Khodaei Z, Aliabadi MH. Damage characterization of
composite plates under low velocity impact using ultrasonic guided waves. Compos
Part B: Eng 2018;138:168–80.
12
Composite Structures 236 (2020) 111869
[10] Soleimanpour R, Ng C. Locating delaminations in laminated composite beams using
nonlinear guided waves. Eng Struct 2017;131:207–19.
[11] Liu X, Bo L, Yang K, Liu Y, Zhao Y, Zhang J. Locating and imaging contact dela-
mination based on chaotic detection of nonlinear Lamb waves. Mech Syst Signal
Process 2018;109:58–73.
[12] Wang Y, Guan R, Lu Y. Nonlinear Lamb waves for fatigue damage identification in
FRP-reinforced steel plates. Ultrasonics 2017;80:87–95.
[13] Zhou J, Xiao L, Qu W, Lu Y. Nonlinear Lamb wave based DORT method for de-
tection of fatigue cracks. NDT & E Int 2017;92:22–9.
[14] Cho H, Hasanian M, Shan S, Lissenden CJ. Nonlinear guided wave technique for
localized damage detection in plates with surface-bonded sensors to receive Lamb
waves generated by shear-horizontal wave mixing. NDT & E Int 2019;102:35–46.
[15] Yelve NP, Mitra M, Mujumdar PM. Detection of delamination in composite lami-
nates using Lamb wave based nonlinear method. Compos Struct 2017;159:257–66.
[16] Aymerich F, Staszewski WJ. Impact damage detection in composite laminates using
nonlinear acoustics. Compos Part A: Appl S 2010;41:1084–92.
[17] Rauter N, Lammering R. Impact damage detection in composite structures con-
sidering nonlinear lamb wave propagation. Mech Adv Mater Struct 2014;22:44–51.
[18] Hong M, Mao Z, Todd MD, Su Z. Uncertainty quantification for acoustic non-
linearity parameter in Lamb wave-based prediction of barely visible impact damage
in composites. Mech Syst Signal Process 2017;82:448–60.
[19] Shi Y, Swait T, Soutis C. Modelling damage evolution in composite laminates
subjected to low velocity impact. Compos Struct 2012;94:2902–13.
[20] Hashin Z. Failure criteria for unidirectional fiber composites. J Appl Mech
1980;47:329–34.
[21] Warren KC, Lopez-Anido RA, Vel SS, Bayraktar HH. Progressive failure analysis of
three-dimensional woven carbon composites in single-bolt, double-shear bearing.
Compos Part B: Eng 2016;84:266–76.
[22] Hou Y, Tie Y, Li C, Meng L, Sapanathan T, Rachik M. On the damage mechanism of
high-speed ballast impact and compression after impact for CFRP laminates.
Compos Struct 2019;229:111435https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.
111435.
[23] Lapczyk I, Hurtado JA. Progressive damage modeling in fiber-reinforced materials.
Compos Part A: Appl S 2007;38:2333–41.
[24] Ridha M, Tan VBC, Tay TE. Traction–separation laws for progressive failure of
bonded scarf repair of composite panel. Compos Struct 2011;93:1239–45.
[25] Fernández-Cañadas LM, Iváñez I, Sanchez-Saez S. Influence of the cohesive law
shape on the composite adhesively-bonded patch repair behaviour. Compos Part B:
Eng 2016;91:414–21.
[26] Tie Y, Hou YL, Li C, Zhou XH, Sapanathan T, Rachik M. An insight into the low-
velocity impact behavior of patch-repaired CFRP laminates using numerical and
experimental approaches. Compos Struct 2018;190:179–88.
[27] Hou YL, Tie Y, Li C, Sapanathan T, Rachik M. Low-velocity impact behaviors of
repaired CFRP laminates: Effect of impact location and external patch configura-
tions. Compos Part B: Eng 2019;163:669–80.
[28] Tie Y, Hou Y, Li C, Meng L, Sapanathan T, Rachik M. Optimization for maximizing
the impact-resistance of patch repaired CFRP laminates using a surrogate-based
model. Int J Mech Sci 2020:105407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2019.
105407.
[29] Zhao Y, Li F, Cao P, Liu Y, Zhang J, Fu S. Generation mechanism of nonlinear
ultrasonic Lamb waves in thin plates with randomly distributed micro-cracks.
Ultrasonics 2017;79:60–7.
[30] Yang Y, Ng C, Kotousov A, Sohn H, Lim HJ. Second harmonic generation at fatigue
cracks by low-frequency Lamb waves: experimental and numerical studies. Mech
Syst Signal Process 2018;99:760–73.
[31] Wang X, Wang X, Niu X, Xiao D, Hu X. Application of nonlinear ultrasonic tech-
nique to characterize the creep damage in ASME T92 steel welded joints. NDT & E
Int 2018;98:8–16.
[32] Mao H, Zhang Y, Mao H, Li X, Huang Z. Stress evaluation of metallic material under
steady state based on nonlinear critically refracted longitudinal wave. Results Phys
2018;9:665–72.
[33] ASTM D7136/D7136M-07 standard test method for measuring the damage re-
sistance of a fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composite to a drop-weight impact
event, 2003.
[34] Hibbitt, Karlsson, Sorensen, ABAQUS/Explicit: user’s manual, Vol. 1, Hibbitt,
Karlsson and Sorenson Incorporated, 2001.
[35] Caputo F, De Luca A, Sepe R. Numerical study of the structural behaviour of im-
pacted composite laminates subjected to compression load. Compos Part B: Eng
2015;79:456–65.
[36] Afsharfard A. Application of nonlinear magnetic vibro-impact vibration suppressor
and energy harvester. Mech Syst Signal Process 2018;98:371–81.
[37] Tanaka H, Sakamoto R. Effects of vibration characteristics on improvement of de-
ployment repeatability by vibration. Aerosp Sci Technol 2019;84:839–44.
[38] Jiao JP, Meng XJ, He CF, Wu B. Nonlinear Lamb wave-mixing technique for micro-
crack detection in plates. NDT & E Int 2017;85:63–71.
[39] Yang B, Xuan F, Chen S, Zhou S, Gao Y, Xiao B. Damage localization and identifi-
cation in WGF/epoxy composite laminates by using Lamb waves: Experiment and
simulation. Compos Struct 2017;165:138–47.