MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED MATERIALS AND

LAMINATED COMPOSITE MATERIALS USING X-RAY MICRO-COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY

Robin James , Sowmya Raghu , Victor Giurgiutiu , Jamil A. Khan

1* 1 1** 1**

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208

1

*Corresponding Author’s email: rj11@email.sc.edu

** Principal Investigator

Motivation for Proposed Research

Advanced materials such as additively manufactured and composite materials are being
explored instead of conventional materials across various industries from aerospace to
infrastructure to even micro-electronics. During the product life cycle of a material, i.e.
manufacturing, operation and maintenance, material characterization plays an extremely crucial
role. In additively manufactured materials, during the process of 3D printing, rapid deposition of
material takes place which leads to improper surface finish with inherent roughness that impacts
the mechanical properties, fluid flow, and heat transfer characteristics of the manufactured part.
In composite materials, manufacturing flaws and operational damage can lead to the reduction
of the service life of a structure. One of the most predominant types of damage that can occur in
composite materials is barely visible impact damage (BVID) which is a combination of matrix
cracks, fiber breaks and delaminations. X-ray micro computed tomography is proposed as a
rapid, reliable and robust nondestructive evaluation methodology for the detection of the
aforementioned structural flaws, since X-rays can penetrate additively manufactured materials
as well as laminated composite materials and can provide a 3D image of the material
microstructure at extremely high resolutions.

Research Objectives

The primary objective of our proposed research project is to develop a reliable and robust
technique to rapidly assess, with minimal system down-time, the integrity of structures,
materials, and systems, using nondestructive X-ray micro computed tomography.

Experimental Techniques

Preliminary Results

Scope of future work

Acknowledgements

The Authors would like to thank Lorain Junor for training Robin James and Sowmya Raghu to
use the Perkin Elmer Quantum GX2 MicroCT Imaging System at the Instrumentation Research
Facility of UofSC-School of Medicine.

CV of PI’s 
is a very predominant type of damage that can occur during the manufacturing stages or during
the service life of the part. BVID can cause various types of interior flaws and defects in the
composite structure such as matrix cracks, fiber breaks and delamination.

It is imperative to use rapid, reliable and robust techniques to detect the presence of the
aforementioned structural flaws at the earliest stages of development. In many scenarios, the
flaws are not apparent since they start from within the structure itself and there are no surficial
manifestations of the damage mechanisms.