Delamination detection in laminated composite beams using hybrid elements

This investigation pursues two goals. One of them is developing a three-dimensional finite element with an embedded interface for analyzing the laminated composite structure. The composite element efficiency is numerically proven. Delaminatoin is an important failure mechanism in certain types of composite structures. Detecting this type of damage is currently a problem of interest to the structural health monitoring community. The second goal of the paper is presenting a novel and well-organized procedure for the identification of delaminatoin in laminated composite beams. The damage identification scheme is formulated by an inverse problem, where analysis data from related finite element modeling, are used to quantify the magnitude and local of delaminatoin. The inverse problem is then transformed to an optimization statement, and the optimum delaminatoin parameters are found by minimizing the objective function. In this study, a genetic algorithm is used for the optimization process. Several numerical examples are analyzed for the accuracy test, and a few of them are presented here.