Thermal–numerical model and computational simulation of pulsed thermography inspection of carbon fiber-reinforced composites

•It is proposed and tested a thermal model for the simulation of the PT inspection.•The model takes into account the microstructure of the material.•The solution of the model is carried out using the Finite Volume Method.•A parametric study was carried out to identify the most sensitive variables.

This paper describes a methodology for the modeling and simulation of a pulsed thermography inspection of carbon fiber-reinforced composites. A thermal–numerical model based on the 3D transient heat conduction equation for heterogeneous media is proposed to model the thermal response of the composite medium when a thermal pulse is applied to its surface. The solution of the model is developed using the finite volume method, in which the approximated equations are obtained by performing energy balances for each elementary volume. The experimental validation of the thermal–numerical model consisted of a comparison of the thermal decay curves for defective areas obtained through numerical simulation and with a pulsed thermography inspection of a laminated composite specimen with simulated defects (Teflon inserts). A parametric study was carried out in order to analyze the influence of the irradiation power density, non-uniform heating and characteristics associated with the defects on quantitative variables such as the onset time and thermal contrast. Numerical results showed that the variable thermal contrast is highly sensitivity to changes in the defect thickness, aspect ratio and parameters related to the external stimulation. Furthermore, an increase in the detectability of defects – especially those with lower aspect ratios – can be achieved by increasing the irradiation power.