Abstract

The absorption of moisture is one possible cause of ageing and deterioration of a composite material. Especially within the aerospace and renewable energy industries profitability depends on long service life and thus the detection and analysis of moisture ingress is an ongoing subject of research. It has previously been shown that the three-dimensional detection of signal from hydrogen nuclei in several polymer samples is possible using a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system with an ultra-short echo time (UTE) sequence. The goal of this study was to detect the signal of moisture in fibre-reinforced polymers and to evaluate the possibility of determining quantitative MR parameters. Therefore, several samples of glass-fibre-reinforced polymers were artificially aged using an autoclave for accelerated moisture absorption and their weight was recorded on a weekly basis. Volumetric MRI data was acquired using a 3D UTE sequence at a resolution of 1 mm3 and the effective transverse relaxation time T2* was evaluated throughout the volumes of the specimens. Consequently, it was shown that the signal sufficed for qualitative three-dimensional mapping of the moisture signal. Furthermore, three-dimensional T2* maps were calculated which revealed a linear relationship between mean T2* values and the amount of absorbed moisture in the samples.

How to Cite:

Zimmermann, A. A. & Schick, F. ., (2019) “Quantitative moisture analysis in composites using a clinical MRI system”, Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation .