Characterisation of voids in fibre reinforced composite materials

Voids and porosity are critical imperfections in fibre reinforced composite materials. The aim of this study is to assess the comparative accuracy and reliability of conventional and novel void characterisation techniques for analysing voids within carbon fibre reinforced composite (CFRC) laminates. While microscopy and Archimedes density measurements can only give results of limited accuracy and reliability, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) analysis was found to have no significant inherent errors and is able to characterise the three-dimensional size, shape and distribution of voids in CFRC laminates. The accuracy of micro-CT was also verified by analysing artificial voids of a known size and shape disbursed throughout a CFRC laminate sample.