Acoustic Emission based on sentry function to monitor the initiation of delamination in composite materials

Research highlights: → Constant load does not confirm constant damage in composite materials. → Different damages have different AE events. → Sentry function is a useful tool to monitor the initiation of damage in delamination. → The less sentry function number is the more damage the material has endured. -- Abstract: Delamination is the most common failure mode in composite materials, since it will result in the reduction of stiffness and can grow throughout other layers. Delamination is consisted of two main stages including initiation and propagation. Understanding the behavior of the material in these zones is very important, hence it has been thoroughly studied by different methods such as numerical methods, Acoustic Emission (AE), and modeling. Between these two regions initiation is a more vital stage in the delamination of the material. Once initiation occurs, which normally requires greater amount of force, cracks can easily propagate through the structure with little force and cause the failure of the structure. A better knowledge of initiation can lead to better design and production of stronger materials. Additionally, more knowledge about crack initiation and its internal microevents would help improve other parameters and result in higher strength against crack initiation. AE is a suitable method for in situ monitoring of damage in composite materials. In this study, AE was applied to test different glass/epoxy specimens which were loaded under mode I delamination. A function that combines AE and mechanical information is employed to investigate the initiation of delamination. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to verify the results of this function. It is shown that this method is an appropriate technique to monitor the behavior of the initiation of delamination.