Ricerc@Sapienza

Contemporary thermoset composites using natural fibres offer a wide range of strength performance. Recently, the combination of flax and carbon fibres has received an increasing attention, mainly dictated by the possibility of merging in a single material high damping properties of flax fibres and the well-known high mechanical properties of carbon fibres. Evaluation of low energy impact damage defects has received a little coverage even if these composites are well known to be susceptible to impact damage.

Contemporary composite materials are continuously being modified and improved in accordance with growing quality requirements of aerospace systems. New manufacturing technologies stimulate development of appropriate (novel) nondestructive testing (NDT) methods and respective hardware for detecting and characterizing hidden defects. One of the recent improvements in this area is related to combining acoustic stimulation of test objects and scanning laser vibrometry.