Impact damage detection in composite plates using deflectometry and the Virtual Fields Method

This paper presents a new method for detecting damage in layered composite materials using a simple measurement technique, deflectometry. The aim is to locate the damage in a specimen and provide a “signature” from the measured surface slopes. Firstly, this method is applied to plate specimens using numerical and experimental data. Secondly, damage indicator based on a new application of the virtual fields method to compute local apparent gaps in equilibrium is presented and used to process the measurements on plates. It is shown that the damage indicator is very sensitive, allowing detection of damage that is difficult to identify directly from the strain maps.