Damage diagnosis and prognosis in composite double cantilever beam coupons by particle filtering and surrogate modelling

Delamination is a failure mechanism which is intrinsic of laminated fibre-reinforced plastics and possibly one of the major concerns of laminated composite structures, since, under certain conditions, delaminations can grow up to an hazardous extent without visible traces. In order to keep pace with recent condition-based maintenance requirements, proper validated diagnostic and prognostic methods which should be capable of operating on-line and in real time are required. In this respect, particle filters provide a consistent Bayesian framework, where the posterior distribution of the system degradation status is recursively approximated based on a time-growing stream of observations measuring the system response. However, the real-time operation capability of such methods is hindered by their requirements in terms of analysis time, which is mainly due to the complexity of the models they rely upon. Within this work, a particle filter framework, able to deal with the inherent stochasticity of fatigue delamination growth – while simultaneously relieving the computational burden associated with the evaluation of the trajectory likelihoods – is provided, leveraging on surrogate modelling strategies. Simultaneous diagnosis and prognosis of a simulated carbon fibre-reinforced plastics double cantilever beam specimen subject to fatigue delamination growth are performed, based on the observation of the strain field pattern acquired at some specific locations. The posterior probability density function of the delamination extent during propagation is updated at each inspection time as well as the probability density function of the remaining useful life. Ultimately, the adoption of the augmented state formulation allows for the estimation and updating of the joint probability density function of the parameters driving the stochastic delamination propagation model. Results demonstrate the feasibility and potential of the proposed approach as a tool able to monitor the progressing delamination while simultaneously providing estimates about the remaining useful life of composite structures.